Every so often I come across a description of neurodiversity that is both enlightening and also a mild bummer in that it makes behaviours sound like a problem with the neurodiverse person rather than an effect of society’s difficulties with understanding and appreciating them.
It takes a bit of work to pick out what is useful in these well-intentioned discourses and leave behind the pathologising - ie not to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
Just as an experiment, I decided to try to reword one such infographic - about Rejection-Sensitive Dysphoria - to be more neuro-affirming.
Note, I’m no psychologist, I’m not aiming to get this exactly right. I’m approaching this as a neurospicy person who feels a whole lot happier about their neurospiciness when I and the people around me are tooled-up to appreciate the benefits alongside the challenges.
Here’s the original document:
Source: https://www.modernmindmasters.com/adhd-rejection-sensitive-dysphoria/
And here’s my attempt at reframing in a neuro-affirming way, which makes it less about the individual, and more about society’s role (I also took out the numbers, because why???):
Finding a Balance
The original version might generate sympathy in a reader and help them to identiy RSD in themselves or someone else. It might also sound validating to people who are enquiring into their own negative feelings about rejection.
My version aims to do something similar, but by creating empathy and affirmation rather than sympathy and pathology. Perhaps it goes too far in the other direction - there truly is light and shadow to everything. I hope some readers come away from this thinking, “Oh, no wonder I have a hard time with rejection. I’ve been trying super hard, and have encountered all sorts of challenges that are bigger than me or the person rejecting me. Maybe there’s some way I can work with that.” If this is you, I’d love to hear about it.