I think that a lot of why people who are neurodivergent can struggle socially is because societal expectations don’t really leave room for patience. For instance, in my high school, there was a magnet program for kids who were deemed above average academically. This was measured through a PSAT score and GPA in middle school. This magnet program had specialized courses for the students in it, and because of this, a lot of our classes were just the same like, 100 people as opposed to like the whole student body of around 2000 people. Because of this, we all at the very least knew of each other. During Sophomore year, someone transferred into the magnet program and nobody really knew her that well. After a while, people in this small magnet program made friend groups within it, and never really ventured out of them. This left the transfer kind of isolated. She tried to talk to people where she could, but people would always give her a face that said “Why are you talking to me?”. She never really picked up on this, and she developed a reputation for being kind of weird. Nobody really knew what her deal was, and nobody really gave her much of a chance to find out. For a while, I didn’t either. I ended up only talking to her because was sitting in a part of the classroom where seats were less cramped and I decided to sit next to her. After a while, I realized that we had a lot in common, and we quickly became friends. (We were both the “weird kid”, but I was just more quiet.) Even now she’s one of the few people that I stay in touch with from high school. After a while, I learned that she had ADHD, and realized she never really got a fair chance to socialize with people partly because of it. I think that if more people were willing to give the “weird kid” a chance, things would probably be drastically different for her, and many other people that are in her situation, neurodivergent or not.
Author: Grombletomp Domplestromp
Hodor, The City of Magic
You are in the campus library when a strange light envelops you, transferring you to another world. With fantasy knowledge limited to pop-culture references, you find that this place reminds you a lot of a very generic fantasy setting. You always liked Dungeons and Dragons, and you hope that you’ll be able to fit right into the world. You approach something that looks like a tavern, and try to open the door. Scanning for a handle, you realize that this door does not have a handle. You try to open the door by pressuring it with your body, but that doesn’t seem to be the way to open it.
You hear a weird voice from behind and slightly below you. It sounds Canadian almost. “Need a wand, stranger?” You turn around to face this person, and realize that it’s Grombletomp Domplestromp, Master of Birds and Words! You don’t realize that your excitement is making you smile until Grombletomp points out that it’s impolite to stare. You remember the situation you’re in and you decide to tell Gromble that you’re having trouble opening the door. “Oh, the glyph. If you can do magic, it’s pretty simple to open.” he says, zapping the door open with ease. You look in awe, as Gromble literally just did magic in front of you. Gromble reminds you that it’s impolite to stare, and begins to ask, “What’s with that face you’re making? It’s just a simple spell.” You explain that you aren’t able to do magic, and he replies, “You’re a Wonbom? We don’t get many Wonboms in Hodor. I can tell you about the place, if you’d like. We can get a booth and talk about stuff.” You agree, and you enter the tavern.
Gromble waves his wand a couple of times towards the podium where a person would normally stand if this were your world, and he leads you over to the waiting area. You ask what he did to the podium. “I just asked them for a table for two, silly. Have you never been to Sabbath’s? It’s a regular thing here.” It seems as though magic is so normalized to him that he can’t imagine life without it. You ask how you’d place an order if you can’t use magic, and he responds, “If you can’t use magic, then I suppose you wouldn’t really be able to live here. You’d have to get help from everyone, all the time. I’d imagine it’d be quite annoying after a while. Anyways, our table’s ready.” He then goes to a seemingly random table and gestures for you to sit, and then takes a seat across from you. You begin to ask how he chose this table, and before you finish asking your question, he says “Once the table’s ready you get the signal telepathically.” You look in awe, and he assumes that this means that you don’t understand, and he begins to further clarify, speaking slower than usual, “The magic signals go in your brain and they tell you where to go.” This feels slightly disparaging to you, his assumption that you wouldn’t understand the concept of telepathy just because you can’t cast spells.
You then realize that in this society, your inability to perform magic will make you a marginalized member of society. This makes you kind of sad, mostly because you haven’t been able to use magic for your entire life, and it’s only becoming a problem in this seemingly fun fantasy world. You then realize that this scenario ties into your Unruly Bodies class because last class you learned about disability and different ways to look at them. You begin to think out loud, saying “I guess I’m disabled here.” Gromble looks at you with confusion, and you begin to explain the many ways to explore disability in a society. You and Gromble decide that for this very specific situation, it may be best to look at your lack of magical prowess through the medical model of disability. Gromble then offers to become your magical guru, much like Yoda, and teach you how to do things like open doors and order food using magic. After long enough, you will be able to assimilate into society. You hope that you can make the world a better place for people who can’t use magic, but until then, you’ll have to find a way to navigate things by changing yourself.
Before you guys do this training arc however, Gromble uses magic to order you guys’ food, pay for the meals, and leave a tip. A lot of seemingly basic things are done with something that you struggle with in the city of Hodor. You begin to realize just how unfriendly this city will be for “wonboms” like you. But until then, you can at least enjoy the meal and atmosphere, knowing that you’ll never truly be alone.
Microaggressions for Dummies (First Edition)
Have you ever wanted to insult people in a way that makes it impossible for them to call you out on it? Are backhanded compliments too direct for you? I have just the thing for you. It’s called a microaggression. You may be wondering; “Gee willikers! What makes something a microaggression? Why is it micro and not regular-sized or macro?” Well, allow me to explain.
Read more: Microaggressions for Dummies (First Edition)A microaggression is defined in the Merriam-Webster dictionary as “a comment or action that subtly and often unconsciously or unintentionally expresses a prejudiced attitude toward a member of a marginalized group (such as a racial minority)”. This technique is usually used to demonstrate a person’s place in a sociological hierarchy without outright speaking about it.
This can happen in many different ways for many different people. I will now provide a couple of examples I have witnessed.
During one of the meetings for a hobby group, the members were discussing cosplay. One of the people mentions that they saw a person whose gender they were unable to assume. Because of this, they chose to say, “I couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl so I just called it an it.” I would consider this a microaggression because their language implied that when a person does not conform to the gender norms engraved into their mind, this person would no longer consider the gender non-conforming person to be a human being. This is obviously bad because we are dehumanizing living human beings for very arbitrary reasons, and alienating trans people who hear ideas or statements such as this.
Another example would be from a friend. They were walking to school and someone, out of nowhere, began to touch their hair. This is unusual because the person had seen hair that was different from theirs, and decided to touch it without asking. The friend found this experience to be similar to that of an exotic animal in a petting zoo. It was also dehumanizing and uncomfortable. 😦
Unruly Bodies 