Concept: Maybe “neurotypicals” who consistently reblog post about autism and other mental disorders and illnesses because they relate to them actually aren’t neurotypical, and just don’t know it.
Even the ones who say, “But everyone does this!” might only be saying it because they do it, and therefore think everyone does, when that’s not the reality.
Like, I remember someone who very obviously had OCD saying, “Everyone gets constant, upsetting intrusive thoughts, and does things to make them go away! It’s normal!” and everyone who responded to them were like, “Uh… No, it’s really not. You have a mental illness.”
I hate how everyone is so quick to assume anyone who relates to their posts without having every aspect of their mental state listed on their blog is obviously an evil, appropriating neurotypical. Maybe they are technically neurotypical, but have one or two traits associated with whatever form of neurodivergence. Maybe they’re neurodivergent and just don’t feel like listing it. Maybe they think they’re neurotypical, and are in the process of realising that they actually aren’t.
Please don’t be so quick to judge. This gatekeeping helps no one.
This is an extremely important point.
I know at least one trans person who didn’t realize they were trans until they were talking about how much they relate to trans things. Only, it was in the context of being dismissive of trans people. “Oh, sure, of course you prefer those pronouns. Everyone does.” But that wasn’t a cis person being dismissive of trans experiences; it was a trans person not understanding that they were trans.
Same thing with a lot of mental illness stuff.
Honestly, if you relate to an experience, you have the experience. Doesn’t matter whether you have it for the same reason someone else does.
On a similar note that I was thinking about recently: perhaps some neurodivergent people who are dismissed by their parents have neurodivergent parents who don’t know it. Like, if your mom says “everyone has that” when you tell her about your depression, there’s a decent chance that she’s not minimizing you, she just has depression herself and doesn’t realize it.
Basically everyone needs to be a little more patient and understanding with one another and not jump up strangers on tumblr’s asses so damn quick.
Also people need to remember that they are not entitled to know every aspect of a person’s physical/mental health history. No one owes you a list of their disorders and illnesses to reblog a post.
OMG YES THIS. THIS TIMES A MILLION. (That’s one of the reasons I never realized there was anything wrong with a number of different things wrong with me. Because I honestly thought everyone was anxious/depressed/had feelings this intense & mutable, but that everyone else could just cope with it better.)
When I worked at a GLBT bookstore, we had a very effeminate gay man come in, one of our regular customers, and we were talking & shooting the shit, and he said something about “wanting to be a woman, like all gay men” and a few of us looked at each other and said “uh, honey, actually, no. Most gay men like being men. Usually the only men who want to be women are trans women.” He was like “oh!”
Cut to the next time I saw them, a few months later. They had done a bunch of research and soul searching and realized they were trans and were presenting as a trans woman.
So yeah to what @the-real-seebs said.
Yeah, I admit that a lot of the “don’t reblog this unless you’re part of the group to which it pertains” comments had me wondering *how* the original poster would know, given that this is a large semi-anonymous website. So really it means “don’t reblog unless you’re an *out* member of the group to which it pertains.”
Mooncustafer 