What Even is Neurotypical?

The other day my daughter and I were talking to an acquaintance. He's a friendly, outgoing type who connects easily with people and gets quite enthusiastic with talking about what he's been up to. As he continued to chat avidly to me, my daughter left to carry on with the activities we were there for and I joined her a bit later. I jokingly asked her if she'd lost interest in what he was regaling us with and she surprised me somewhat with the response she gave. She actually felt he was being rude because he kept interrupting me whenever I tried to add to the conversation and would get distracted and go off on another tangent of his own.

I was rather touched by her getting offended for me, but I'm so used to it that I feel like that's what most people are like. Maybe in my experience, but not so much in hers. We are both quiet and introverted, but I guess we've grown up in different environments. As I look back and think about it I can recall being pleasantly surprised and rather touched on the rare occasions when I encountered peers who would actually make a point to come back to me and ask what it was I was saying when someone else interrupted and talked over me. I used to assume that I was talked over because my voice was too quiet to be heard. Either that or I was just too uninteresting for most to bother listening or responding to, because even talking louder didn't seem to work.

I find it easier to communicate online with written word than in person, because I can think for longer about what I'm wanting to express before writing it down and sending it. Yet even when I write a comment I don't usually expect it to be read or responded to, especially if there are lots of other comments already made.

Ironically, while I saw this as normal for me I took a different stance when raising my daughters. While I taught them not to interrupt when others were speaking, I would always make sure to come back to them and hear what they wanted to say when I'd finished speaking with someone else. I also made sure to take interest in what they were telling me about, even if it wasn't something that personally interested me, because what mattered more was that it was important to them. Too often we experience our interests and achievements being dismissed as worthless just because others don't see them as important themselves. This is something I refuse to do, because things can still be appreciated even if it's not something that normally interests you. That said, I don't think someone should feel forced to feign interest in something that really doesn't interest them, but knowing what that dismissal can feel like I would personally choose to try and find an interest for someone I care about or even just want to maintain a cordial relationship with.

In general it's normal for children to be self absorbed as the prefrontal cortex takes about 25 years to fully develop. So children are naturally more selfish and the loudest ones will dominate and drown out the quieter ones. Growing up I learnt to just join in with others by listening and observing. I'm still not good at conversing unless it's one on one, so even today if there is a group I default to just listening to the conversations. It's not a bad thing and I often know what's going on in people's lives more than others around them because of it. Everyone else is usually too busy trying to make themselves heard, after all.

Growing up, my daughters weren't always in classroom environments due to being homeschooled for most of their education. This meant that they were surrounded more by adults and had more choice in which children they hung around. The family they connected with the most had children who weren't self conscious and were very inclusive of everyone. When they joined my girls at one of their dance activities I was amazed at how much they changed the social environment when everyone was gathering before the class began. Instead of hanging in their own little groups as they normally would, their friends had eveyone curiously joining in with the games they would start up.

These days we have labels for those people who get distracted easily, talk over others or seem just interested in themselves. The main one seems to be ADHD and then there's a general blanket term of neurodivergence. There's something of a campaign to drive acceptance of neurodivergence and making allowances for it. However, where do we draw the line between accommodating for the fact that all people generally are different in the way they think and act and allowing it to be used as an excuse for them to get away with behaving terribly towards other people? And can we even define what is neurotypical when we have such a diversity in people?

These days everyone seems to want to class themselves as being ADHD or on the autism spectrum. Could it be that they feel this gives an answer to that age old question of "why don't I fit in?" I think nearly everyone feels like that at some point, even those we least expect it of. Yet I think that often the reason why we feel like we don't fit in is purely because none of us are completely the same as someone else. We usually feel like we belong the most when we're doing an activity that everyone has chosen to come together for because they all enjoy it. However, even then when a group of those same people organise another event to do something else, those who don't enjoy that activity or who aren't able to do it can then feel excluded again.

A trend I've noticed on social media is people saying that if you do things like this or that you are ADHD or on the autism spectrum. Yet the given examples are a range things that practically everyone can say that they relate to at least some of. I can tick off so many, but by proper diagnosis methods I'm not classed as ADHD or being high on the autism spectrum. So that means I'm neurotypical, right?

I saw an amusing video the other day where a woman acted out a "what if I treated my friends how my autistic son treats his friends?" scenario. It ended with a scenario where a friend arrives unannounced at her home and asks if she can come in. To which the woman responds, "no, no you can't" and closes the door on her. She concludes with mentioning that this is often how she feels like responding herself, because she is also neurodivergent, and asking how neurotypical people are okay with people dropping in on them out of the blue. It was a video that was going viral, but I saw no responses from any "neurotypical" people answering this question. They were all responding in agreement with the woman that they struggle with this too. So are we actually all just neurotypical and the extroverts the neurodivergent ones?

I actually have a theory here. I don't generally have people drop in unannounced and on the rare occasions they do I find it stressful because I'm not sure how to deal with it. I enjoy the company, however, and I like the idea that someone finds me interesting enough to be around that they would do such a thing. Secretly I'd love to be someone that happily welcomes lots of people turning up at her house, yet there are few people I know of who even have this happen. My daughter is friends with some Pacific Islanders and Maoris who have a big community dynamic. They have aunts and uncles who aren't even necessarily blood relatives. Friends can just turn up at the house and help themselves to food from the fridge and this is totally normal. When my daughter went to visit she was just accepted by the family. Mum came home from work and kissed all her children and their friends on the forehead like they were all her own.

My theory is that in western culture we are awkward not because of neurodivergence, but because we've become so far removed from our community dynamics. Those who just accept and welcome friends turning up out of the blue do so because that's what they've been used to all their lives. Those who are uncomfortable with it are uncomfortable because it hasn't been the norm for them. We are becoming isolated by what we perceive as more important things, like careers and keeping up appearances. With us so busy with these "more important" community and relationships with other people have lost their importance to us and we don't really know them well enough any more to know if they will just accept us or judge us.

If someone turns up and your house isn't immaculate, you worry whether they will judge you on it. That's why you need warning to prepare. I've found the people most likely to invite you into their homes out of the blue in a friendly manner when you hardly know them usually have messy houses and don't seem to care what you think.

I tend to find that with those people who are telling everyone they are neurodivergent, ADHD, autistic etc, it seems to be used either to gain sympathy or as an excuse to be rude and get away with it. If you then point out that rude behaviour, they tend gaslight you and say it's you that's the problem for being neurotypical and not understanding.

Ironically, people who are actually autistic or have a mental disability where they struggle to understand social convention don't tend to tell you they have that condition. They're usually too busy trying to socially do the right thing and not stand out, because they've been taught by family how you're meant to behave in order to not cause friction (they generally don't like friction). I have two clients like this and I couldn't tell you what their actual diagnoses are. When I see them they do the required pleasantries then disappear into their rooms while I get on with my job. I only disturb them if I need to ask something important and one of them might not even respond, especially if it's not been planned in advance that I might need to ask him something important. I have to be very persistent if it really is actually important enough to need a response while I'm there, otherwise I'll leave a note.

I had a friend whose son was diagnosed with Aspergers. I only knew because she told me, because he certainly wouldn't have mentioned it. She would apologise for rude behaviour from him and explain his condition out of embarrassment then pull him up on it so that he could learn. He didn't care what others thought, but his mum's corrections, and likely her embarrassed reactions, helped him to learn that certain etiquette was expected to function in the adult world and he began to apply this as he grew older.

I'm starting to come to the conclusion that the reality is that the entire population of the planet could actually be best described as neurodivergent, because there is a broad spectrum in the way our brains function. A bigger question for me is what can even be classed as neurotypical? For some it seems to be extroverted behaviour that's neurotypical, yet ADHD can manifest itself that way and isn't that neurodivergence?

It is typical that people have a need to fit in and care what others think of us, unless they are a psychopath or high level autistic. Some autistics high on the spectrum quite often don't even have self preservation instincts. A friend's son would quite literally have starved to death rather than eat anything other than the single food item he would eat at that particular time. Autism is certainly a spectrum, but it doesn't become too much of an issue until it reaches a point where they couldn't survive without the care of those around them. It's completely normal to want to feel a bit special and be given more leeway and when we see people like this getting looked after, treated well and having allowances made for them I can see why it would be tempting to want to have the same diagnosis in order to gain those same privileges. Psychopaths don't exactly get the same kind of perks, so I guess that's why it's not so popular to jump on that bandwagon. 😉

Allowances are now even being made in the academic sector for those diagnosed with ADHD. However, these allowances aren't always helpful in getting them to where they want to be. The reality is that to reach reach a career goal you need to find a way to work with those around you and that means putting things in place yourself in order to do that. It also means recognising abrasive behaviour in yourself. It often amuses me how people with ADHD observe and dislike the very behaviours in others that they themselves are guilty of. If a diagnosis can help them to start recognising these behaviours and finding ways to quiet or order that chaos in their brains in order to function alongside others, then it's not a bad thing. But if it's just used as an excuse not to do anything about the behaviour then they aren't doing themselves any favours.