Quirky vs Diagnosis

 This article has been making the rounds on instagram (the only social media I really hang out on anymore, and even then mostly browsing.) 

And...I have thoughts. (To the surprise of nobody.)

I agree. To a degree.

I grew up quirky. As did my sister. And my parents were also quirky. Too smart. Too outspoken. Too dedicated to our vision of right and wrong. Black and white. Our opinions, once formed, are set in stone and rarely to be changed.

And if you were to say all of that today in any elementary school, you would very rapidly get a referral to be diagnosed with high functioning/level one autism (aka Asperger's Syndrome.)

And cool. That may be so. (Read: probably is so.)

Which is why for the majority of elder boy's life, I simply smiled and said, blood or no, he was just like his parents and grand parents.

Until.

Because kids today have a lot more to deal with in terms of the ability to bully one another than they did when I was growing up. And oh, boy, did I get "bullied." 

Except we didn't call it that then. We just had people who were little a-holes who you learned to steer clear of and ignore. And, when necessary, involve teachers/parents/administrators. All of whom - in a what would be a shocking turn of events today - actually DID something about the behavior.

In today's world, would a psychologist tell me I have trauma from it? I can say yes with alacrity, because that is, in fact, what happened. And then she wanted me to delve deep into my inner psyche to figure out where I felt the pain of that in my body. And...I don't? It was a long time ago. I don't still feel hurt by it. Am I somewhat mistrustful of new people? Yeah. Can I spot fake nice from a hundred miles away? Also yeah. Do I have any tolerance for fake bs? No.

But do I feel like I need to do anything to "fix" or "heal" any of that? Also no.

And still. The treatment from other kids was so bad that elder boy was having a very hard bouncing back. And because no one would deal with the issue of the other kids - wanting instead to call him too sensitive and unable to take a joke (which to be fair, they would try initially when I was young, but they really doubled down on it with elder boy. Because no one wants to take accountability for the fact that they're failing as parents, I guess.) And so it began to eat away at his mental health. And he teetered over the edge into darkness and...we needed help.

And help came in the form of a diagnosis.

Because now, he's able to say, "Oh. They're that way because they don't understand how my brain works. And they can't handle the differences. And so it's not who I am as a person that they can't deal with. It's that they don't understand how to deal with a person who's different like me."

Maybe it's splitting hairs. Maybe we could have pushed harder for him to absorb the lessons that got me through upper elementary, middle, and high school. Except that I didn't want that for him. Because for all I got through it and for all I'm pretty okay with who I am today - I used to be extroverted. I used to love making new friends and being around people. I was class president. I was in theater on stage rather than behind the scenes. And that all changed. I quit trying to lead. I moved into stage crew, then even farther back into set design. Anything to avoid the attention of people who would then seek to chip away at my sense of self-worth and value.

And I found my people in a smaller, quirkier tribe.

But I (we, hubs is on board here) wanted more than that for our kids. Or at least, for them to have an option.

And having a "diagnosis" that explains the quirky, gives other people a way to know how to relate to them. And it cuts down on some of the outright cruelty. And, in the situations where it doesn't, it gives me the ability to say to the parents/authority figure, "Are you really going to allow this level of bullying of someone with a disability?"

And that shuts it down pretty fast.

Do I wish it was different? 100%

But since parents have abdicated their responsibility to raise their kids to be good people who aren't aholes to people who are different, then the people who are different need any defense they can get.

Do I love all the 30-somethings getting diagnoses now? Not really. In my opinion, if you made it through school and found coping mechanisms to get you to success, then you don't need a diagnosis. But also? It doesn't hurt me, or my kids, for you to have one. (Unless you're on a medication that you don't actually need and are contributing to the scarcity and making it so my child who literally can't ready without his adderall can't get his script filled. Then I would love to smack you upside the head.)

But this is the way of the world. And sometimes you just have to roll with it. We make new discoveries in a field, and then we can understand the past a little better than we did before. Getting annoyed with it serves no one. But I guess maybe it helps you write an article with the hopes of going viral.

So there's that.