As an individual who’s a neurodivergent, has a child who is ADHD/ASD, and as a former public school educator who spent most of their time working in the special education/resource classroom, I would like to see myself as a sort of authority, but I think that I will let you to judge of that. It’s always been a priority for me to get properly educated on these conditions as much as possible, and that I continue to receive the most accurate information available from various resources that are continuously discovering more ways to gain an of understanding these types of altered brain functioning individuals(Neurodivergents). There is a vast amount of knowledge that I have obtained throughout the many years spent going through all kinds of research papers, clinical trial test results, also from my personal life experiences.

There was an incident where I had some issues with law enforcement officers and medical personnel that weren’t knowledgeable enough on the appropriate methods when helping individuals with mental health difficulties. Those who are like me, that have extreme anxiety paired with PTSD, that when I’ve been having trouble sleeping due to the amount of trauma I have had in my lifetime (a few times I was SA I had either drugged or passed out so sleeping is a trigger for me), that when I was thinking that people were in my house (and clearly I was having a mental health crisis), but the two officers who had responded to the call were not behaving professionally, and they spent the time that we had to wait for the ambulance to arrive, mocking my situation and they were also joking about that must be be using drugs and that they were not happy with having to stay with me till I was headed to the hospital.

Sadly, it’s become pretty apparent that we as a society are not fully aware of the various ways that people who are dealing with these conditions think, feel, see, or experience the world around them. The truth is that most people are not going to seek out any kind of information on these topics until they are directly responsible for someone who does (ie. a child, student, partner, or family member). I believe that it’s incredibly important that first responders, educators/school faculty, and the individuals in positions of authority (ie. Judges, lawyers, caseworkers, etc.) who determine the approval for aid that many people with these disabilities need, and that it’s required that they have a clear and in depth training on the knowledge of these conditions. There’s just a gross lack of knowledgeable people in those positions and I have had to experience this myself.

The truth is that people who have these conditions their brain processes input differently than most people. An excellent example of what I am talking about has to deal with a situation where I had to help a man with ASD who had collapsed due to him having a heat stroke, and repeatedly having seizures while I was trying to find out information and determine how serious the situation was. When I first got to him he was just lady there and he wasn’t able to talk, so I asked him if he would blink his eyes to answer my questions (which he was able to do). One of the things that I asked was if he was scared, because I could tell that he possibly had ASD. I repeatedly told him that he was going to be ok and that I wasn’t going to leave him, till I knew that he was in safe hands and was going to be taken to the hospital. When the first responders showed up to the scene they had had a history with the man. I stayed close by, but gave them room to do their jobs. When they opted to give him oxygen however, the man was not able to understand the directions that he was given. I told the senior responder that he needed to tell the man that he needs “to smell the air,” that is because I thought the man would be able to understand that he had to breathe in through his nose,and not his mouth, if he was to compare it to smelling. The thing is that even though the first responder thought it was silly he still did it and it actually worked out.

The point that I am trying to make is that sometimes having an understanding or knowledge of these conditions is incredibly helpful and can help out in any situation.

When my son was younger and struggling with school I made it a point to go to the school and observe him in class. The idea of him possibly being ADHD/ASD was already a thought in my mind, but I was not going to be able to help him if I didn’t know what exactly was happening in school. I was completely shocked when I got the chance. I saw that his desk was isolated from the other kids at the front of the class and they had taped out around the desk and boarder that he had to stay inside of if he was to get out of his chair. I watched my son wiggle about in his seat, then he stood up and squirmed about as he leaned over his trying to do the work that the class was all working on at the time and I felt like crying. I thought to myself that his dad needed to see what happened in order to get what our son was dealing with, but he never did and that made it worse for our child, because his dad was not going to be able to get why he was being sent home from school with bad remarks about his behavior. At the time that he was getting these bad remarks his dad was not going about it the right way, and he would ask our son if he was “a bad boy, because only bad boys get in trouble.” Also, his had started to spank him (this was done with my son having to drop his pants down and bend over, and he would be spanked hard the exact same number of times that he was in age. ). All of this stuff was happening when our son was in kindergarten and only 5 years old. These spankings were stopped by me after my first time getting to observe him in class, because I knew that it wasn’t my son’s fault that he was always getting in trouble for things like speaking out of turn or not staying in his seat. Traditional classroom etiquette is not something that my son wasn’t capable of doing at that, and that he would have to work incredibly hard mentally to try to do it, and that absolutely doesn’t work if he’s also being tasked to do other stuff as well.

My child is 14 now and he has a lot of support from his school and his family, and he makes good grades and he even has a real friend. I’m so proud of all of the things that I know he has always tried to do and for all of the things that he has accomplished. The truth is that he has had to have his mind completely reprogrammed to believe that he’s not bad, stupid, lazy, or any other negative ideas that were planted in his head and that he is a very good, intelligent, caring person and he is capable of doing what he needs or wants to accomplish. I have had to repeatedly reinforce those things and I have always been there to help him with his struggles, because I know that he has always tried his best. That is all I have asked him to continue to do. There is a huge difference between the people that my son knows that genuinely care about him and that he’s always been able to be completely himself around, and he is well aware of the reality that not everyone out there cares about him, and that he has to be careful around those people, because they are just going to get him in trouble and that it is best that he not engage with any of them. I have had to sit down with my teen and have a hard conversation with him on the topic of sex and all of the little subjects that are in the same vein as that. The whole thing was a little bit awkward, because I felt like I was not the appropriate person for this particular discussion, because I have no idea what it’s like to be a male going through puberty, but I did my best to give him the information that I have learned from my life experiences and that I have learned from talking to people about it.

Over the course of my life I have had the best an most insightful interactions with people who have had a lot of similarities with me in the parts of the way that they experience and interpret the information that they are receiving from the all of the different senses. This has led to me having some truly in-depth discussions on an assortment of topics, but more importantly I would always inquire about what it was like for them to have to be perceived as odd and/defective by people that didn’t really have any knowledge about the things they would constantly struggle with the rest of their lives and that they would likely have to explain to others why they are not “normal” and that it’s never going to change. That they are going to have to mask the things that they are/have be told not to do/show, because they were wrong/bad, and so they now have to hide them and most oftentimes strangers don’t have a clue that they are different when they are out in public, since it has been a process that they have perfected over a lifetime.

The truth is that it’s extremely difficult and draining to maintain a mask of wellness and normalcy, so I feel so sad that people who are neurodivergent are likely to never stop masking their symptoms in front of people their whole lives, because they fear being judged, abused or abandoned by people who they want so much for these people to like them. I’m not going to lie to you, but I mask my symptoms of my mental health problems so much now that I don’t really stop masking. even if I am at home, because now that my boyfriend has moved in, it’s not been a good experience whenever I have actually allowed myself to unmask. There was a time that he was able to observe one of the things that I do to help soothe myself during stressful time periods in my life, like humming randomly tunes, and that my doing so was awkward to him that he felt that he should say something to me about it. I felt so much shame and guilt that I try not to do that around him, and so I hide myself away from him in the bedroom, or some other part of the house most of the time so he is not being disturbed by my quirks. I know that I should not have to do that, but I’m still in the process of trying to overcome my past traumas, and I have absolutely no extra energy to devote to any situation where other peoples’ discomfort with the things that help me to cope are just not at the top of my “to do list” right now.

With all of the fore mentioned experiences that I have shared with you so far I have on last statement to add. When you are in a position where you can get to know an individual who has a neurodivergent brain that you will take the opportunity to speak with them honesty regarding their special interests, what are the things that they would like for other people to know about what they have achieved in spite of their mental challenges, and what they would liked for parents, other family members, friends, peers, and general education teachers/faculty/staff to have known that would have been helpful to them while growing up.

Remember that everyone in this world is trying to do their absolutely best they can with all the were given to use. Be safe, be healthy and always be a person that can help remind others and yourself that we are not going to have to be alone in life and that we have one another, and we can be happy for knowing that.

Wishing everyone love, light, and happiness!