The Need For Neutrality

There is a lot of discussion around the strengths of being Neurodivergent in neurodiversity advocacy. Often this narrative is used to make us sound more attractive to employers - as I’ve touched on in previous articles. Another way this is used is to combat negative and ableist stereotypes about various mindbodies - that Autistics lack empathy, have poor social skills, that ADHDers are disorganised and unreliable, that Dyslexics have poor communication skills. It is right that we counter discriminatory attitudes and educate about the realities of our mindbodies, but then we often cross that line and start getting into ‘superpower’ territory. ‘My ADHD gives me the superpower of hyperfocus’, ‘My Autism gives me the superpower of a strong work ethic’, ‘My Dyslexia gives me the superpower of big picture thinking’. Not only does this reinforce the idea that we need to be talented and productive to be worthy, it creates a hierarchy within these identities - glamourising the ‘elite’ and further pathologising those with these identities but without these ‘superpowers’.

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