This week I began to read the introduction to a book written by an autistic person who has a strong social media presence and is a great advocate for autistic rights. I had such a violent reaction to the first two pages that I shut the book and returned it to the library but I have found that when I have this type of reaction this is definitely something I need to explore. So this blog post is my attempt to do that.

The thing that made me so incensed and alienated was that, from my reading of the introduction, the author was saying that I was either autistic and could understand what they were talking about or I was not and I couldn’t. I violently disagreed with this. I have spent a lot of time trying to understand Matt’s neurodivergent experience of the world, and that of other people, through talking and listening to them and I think, although I have not experienced it and would never claim that level of knowledge, I do have some idea now of the problems neurodivergent people face. My anger came at the idea that I could never get it because I was not autistic. It made me feel like the enemy, someone who automatically, by dint of my neurological makeup, could never be brought into the fold of autistic advocacy. It made me feel what the author and other neurodiverse people have probably felt all their lives – I didn’t fit. And perhaps that was the intent. As I say, I didn’t read on to find out. I am not going to name the book or author because my concern here is not the content of that or any other book but the wider narrative, the narrative  of “us” against “them”. This can be “us” neurotypicals against “them” neurodivergent people in many of the wives forums I read or “us” neurodivergent people against “them” neurotypicals in social media articles and often on Twitter.

To some extent this narrative is completely understandable, particularly when it comes from neurodivergent people. The majority of systems, from education to health to legal to employment to benefits and far beyond have been set up without any thought for them and the difficulties they encounter. When they are considered it is often tokenistic, a “quiet time” in supermarkets and shops at some ridiculously early hour of the day for example. Similarly I can see that neurotypical people have a point when they say how hard life can be with their husbands not understanding the neurotypical needs they have and therefore not meeting them in the context of their marriage.

I have two problems with the us against them narrative however. The first is the assumption that this wrongly constructed system and these failing marriages are deliberate – that someone (the other “side”) is to blame. I do not believe it is. I believe it is the unfortunate consequence of a long term misunderstanding of neurodiversity and no real dialogue between people of all neurology about how they experience the world and how they would like to. In essence it is a problem of communication – one which can only be solved by everyone learning to communicate better.

The second and more important issue I have with it though is what if it were to become “us” against “them”? That would mean it was Matt against I. That we were on different sides of some battle. How on earth, under those circumstances, would our marriage ever stand a chance of success? And it would not just be us. It would be every neurodiverse couple and family in a continual battle, every neurotypical parent against their neurodivergent child, every neurodivergent sibling against their neurotypical brother, every neurotypical child against their neurodivergent parent. We cannot create a more diverse, tolerant and inclusive society by drawing up these battle lines. We can only do it by working together to make things better for everyone.

Furthermore, although we have differences we also have similarities. Matt is neurodivergent and I am not but I have lots of things in common with him that I don’t have with other neurotypicals. We share as much as we differ on. That is why we got married. There are things about each other we don’t always get at first but when we talk and listen we come to understand. If we viewed the world as neurotypicals against neurodiverse we wouldn’t even have a chance at conducting those conversations civilly.

So why has this narrative occurred? I believe it is because of the great amount of hurt that one group has experienced at the hands of the other. It is not deliberate, in most cases, but it is most certainly painful. It is the human instinct at such times to put the inflictors of this pain into categories and fear them, which ultimately leads to us fighting against them. It is really easy to say they are different (whether because we are neurotypical and they are neurodivergent or because we are neurodivergent and they are neurotypical) and thus that is why they hurt us. It is actually an inbuilt psychological defense mechanism, if a big furry creature with sharp teeth once ate our ancestor we attack big furry creatures with sharp teeth. But we don’t have to be governed by our inbuilt instincts. We can think beyond them.  I don’t feel we can condemn someone just for being something different to us. Rather it is their unwillingness to listen to our experience and try to understand and ours to do the same to them that is causing the problem. This is what we should be trying to remedy.

So I do not like this narrative of us against them for any groups and especially when the two groups are neurotypical and neurodiverse. I feel the situation we are actually in is that we have people, both neurodiverse and neurotypical, who are aware of and trying to work with the challenges neurodiverse people face and those who are not aware and are therefore not trying to make things better. Of course there may be some who are aware but still don’t try to help. These are the people that we should all be challenging. But rather than a conflict we should be setting up situations where everyone can learn from each other and work together to create a world that is better for everyone. This is the only way we can hope to heal a neurodiverse family and by implication, a neurodiverse world.