For fans of Fern Brady and the self-aware neurodivergent of the world this is not a radical statement. Being disabled and neurodivergent is its own sort of de-motivational meme; neither inspirational nor impressively capable. Although Poppy from the Telegraph and the gammon terminally devoid of empathy insist otherwise, it’s also really a shitty life experience for us living.
The superpower hypothesis unsurprisingly misses the not so subtle gritty details of daily life. While routine and predictability help me with coping, they also introduce an unwelcome anxiety, stress and rigidity because the world doesn’t work in routine, predictable ways. This weekend, Storm Boelo has caused weather warnings with advice to avoid non-emergency travel where I live. Great, just batten down the hatches, grab a book and listen to some mellow jazz. Except I was at my girlfriend's, so you think, just stay over and not travel while the warning is in place. Great idea; our schedules allow it, except nope. My anxiety has a meltdown because to get to my place safely, I have to travel not on the preset day, and I also can’t stay over because I don’t stay over and have a Monday routine on top of the plans I have already made. Being in my place sheltering is not fun, and I am convinced, despite there being no evidence, that I have somehow messed something up. That mess up and whatever the something could be are both undefined and non-existent, but my anxiety cares not.
That is only one example of routine rigidity interfering; last minute changes can be done; however, there is a cost. With disability, sometimes we can push through, cover it. In both cases, what isn’t apparent is when we have to recover and pay the price of whatever we did on our wellbeing. Sitting in a howling wind, convinced you have let people down and disappointed them when you did exactly what they asked you to do for your own safety and their piece of mind; that’s not a superpower.
Perhaps what we share with super-heroes is that we are forever going to be outsiders to a society that regards us, even when we have saved it, with at the very least suspicion and all too often open hatred. Growing up feeling like you didn’t get the instruction manual like everyone else, being told how weird and broken you are, not being picked while your ideas are stolen and applauded are the price of growing up an outsider. It’s being misunderstood, being told your intentions, perhaps in trying to prevent an accident you apparently sounded threatening or too harsh, or that the accident is your fault because you predicted it with the aim of prevention. It’s growing up learning that it is safer to apologise for what you didn’t do, think or intend and being taught to distrust yourself along the way. It is hearing “you know what you have done,” without ever finding out what “it” was. Like the superhero, it is feeling alone on an alien planet.
I would love to not be overwhelmed in a crowded place, to love a stadium concert, a festival, a crowded food hall, a party in a place with stairs, to park without being judged, or to do the activities of everyday life without being weighed, measured and found wanting somehow. A life where I am not expected to prove my disability and the extent of the challenges I face, to then be shouted down as complaining and having it easy if I do. The disabled and neurodivergent are not being asked to change an attitude or a behaviour or adopt a policy that involves action; we are being asked to stop existing. People are not unsustainable, people are not problems, people are not illegal; those are categories made by people to justify an action. It is the difference between fighting for rights and fighting for the right to exist; we are being denied our humanity.
I probably sound angry; it’s because I am; under that there is a sadness. A sadness where I see a system that says it is to protect is weaponized instead, sad because people chose to not do their job because they can get a hit of ”saviour dopamine” instead, sad that children are being let down the way I was let down, sad that my friend feels the same way I do because they too have felt the wrath of a society that makes us less than human, sad that having emotional capacity and empathetic bandwidth is treated as being broken, and I am sad because my life and the lives of those like me are fenced in by bureaucratised spite that aims to enhance loneliness and poverty. A little more pattern recognition, empathy and intolerance to injustice would go a long way if they too weren’t regarded as faults and problems to be solved.
Broken systems break people, which isn’t the saddest thing about it all. The saddest thing is that people think this is okay. The experiment called “western civilisation” has failed.
