[CW: Discussion of Ableism and Other Forms of Bigotry]
There is this tactic for either NTs or self-hating NDs to complain about people āromanticizing mental illness/neurodivergence.ā
To frame what I think about this kind of talking point, it has very āwedge issueā energy. It reminds me of people who say things like āIām not transphobic; we just need to protect children and not have them undergo harmful medical procedures!ā. To your average person who doesnāt think much about these kinds of issues, that kind of speech doesnāt sound very divisive or harmful, but to people who are trans, weāve come to realize that this is just a sleazy way of making oneās bigotry sound ārationalā and even āgood faith.ā
Itās not!
Similarly to the example of what people say about trans people, people who complain about people who are ND or going through mental illnesses āromanticizingā their experiences will literally use this remark at any autistic person thatās not beating themselves up over being autistic. An autistic woman on Instagram posted a reel about her reclaiming the term āromanticizingā and owning up to it as a response to this garbage, saying something along the lines of āYeah, I romanticize my autism, and Iām not ashamed of it,ā and someone, I shit you not, commented saying āThat would be like romanticizing cancer!ā
This is awful. This term āromanticizingā is a huge red flag for me in these kinds of discussions. Iāve felt shame for my autism my whole life, having to feel like Iām deeply broken, and although Iāve gone through internalized bigotry for other aspects of my identity such as race, gender, and sexuality, my internalized ableism was so damn hard to shake because it seems like Iām even less understood in being neurodivergent than I am in being black, trans, and queer!
There is a gross, performative tendency for people to say they oppose ableism, but they will still be highly critical the moment an ND person displays common tendencies of being autistic for instance. In the process of shitting on this ND person, however, they will not make any direct references to them being ND, thereby making their bigotry just seem like a socially acceptable manifestation of being rude to someone simply for āhaving bad traits.ā
Once I realized that this is the kind of thinking that ableists operate under, it made me feel a bit more at ease with being neurodivergent, but this shit doesnāt stop being frustrating. When these people talk about āromanticizingā these conditions, they claim to say it out of concern that it makes neurodivergence and mental illness look like a joke or āsunshine and rainbowsā when thereās just so much suffering involved, but every person who is ND and/or mentally ill fucking knows that itās not just sunshine and rainbows. We have suffered, and we continue to do so as a result of society seeming like itās not made for us. Thatās why not shaming us every 5 seconds for being the way we are and struggling with the symptoms we struggle with is so damn crucial.
We are living in a world that tells us, both implicitly and explicitly, to feel inferior over these things, and the moment we say āNo thanks.ā to that? Well, we canāt do that because itās inconsiderate of those who feel inferior over these things, which is why this desire to reject this shame exists in the fucking first place!
My whole damn life I wasnāt able to go through without feeling like my neurodivergence makes me subhuman. At my current age, which feels so deep into me feeling tarnished by the excessive bigotry Iāve faced in my life, just let me have this fucking moment to not think Iām some kind of demon who needs to hate myself every single second to have an āappropriateā thought process and reaction to me being this way.
Iāve devoted so much time to internalized ableism that Iād rather move on from it, and Iām sure many other ND people want to as well. If this means weāre āromanticizingā our conditions in the process, then maybe thatās just how it needs to be so we can fucking get on with our lives.
First of all, I appreciate you sharing and posting, and Iām sorry that shit is such a freaking struggle. The internalized ableism and pretending to fit into the NT mold has been a driving factor for a lot of self hatred and depression over the course of my life as well, and Iām so tired of it. Itās like a constant litany of phrases like āwhatās wrong with meā and/or āwhy canāt I just do things like everyone elseā like my existence is an affront on nature. Just a constant suffocating pressure that feels inescapable and when you point it out or ask for help or accidentally cross that invisible boundary that somehow sets you apart from the stereotypical Them, youāre labeled an Other, an Abnormal, and even when the consequences arenāt physical, theyāre certainly tangible. Add in all the phobia creeps and itās downright unsafe for people whose neurodivergence compounds everything else. Itās tough out there comrade, at least here we can chat and boost each other up. I hope you have a better rest of your day/week/month.
Spoiler
Fuck the haters.
Thank you