Intersectional Neurodivergence

By Kit Treadwell

CN: mentions of depression, discussion of mental health

At the beginning of this year, I had to fill in a routine form; the sort of admin we all seem to do endlessly. It was entirely unremarkable, except for one drop down menu. There was a tick box – do you identify as having a disability? – and on answering yes, it invited me to pick mine from a provided list. What? The form assumed that I could only be disabled in one way, totally incomprehensive of the possibility that two or more conditions might coexist Sadly, this isn’t an uncommon experience, and for people like me it can leave you feeling isolated. Nothing confirms a feeling of brokenness like being told it is impossible to have more than one disability – but here’s a secret. Within the realm of neurodivergence, it’s incredibly common for conditions to overlap. Nobody actually knows what causes dyslexia (my learning disability) and the boundaries are thin. I’d like to write a little bit about what it’s like to suffer mental illness as someone with a learning disability, intersectionality, and how we can better accommodate the wide range of neurodivergence.

I was diagnosed with dyslexia aged seven and have spent my whole life finding ways to work around it. Dyslexia is relatively common, affecting nearly twenty percent of people, and like all learning disabilities, it comes with both positives and negatives. I struggle to learn vocabulary, for example (something that I probably should have thought more about before choosing a language-intensive degree) but I’m good at picture learning. I read messily, but quickly. It isn’t necessarily debilitating; it only requires some adjustments to learning. Nearly fourteen years later, I am fully at ease with it (when people ask how it has impacted my life, I often say I put the sexy in dyslexia). One thing I can’t shake, though, is the feeling of otherness. Neurodivergence is a relatively new and useful term for the wide range of disorders and conditions that affect brain processing, but it does imply that you’ve diverged from a norm. To test for dyslexia, you’re required to sit a three-hour assessment which mostly consists of forcing you to do things that you’re definitionally bad at – it’s a checklist of “yup, can’t do that!” Indeed, the standard test searches for all conditions, making it even harder for those with more than one element of neurodivergence. I don’t have anything fun to say about it – it’s just genuinely quite a horrible experience. I’ve had to do it thrice, and each time it’s left me feeling broken, incompetent and different.

Mental illness, as hard as we try, is still stigmatised. It’s treated much better than it was, for sure, but it’s still an illness, something broken and to be fixed. It doesn’t help that there’s no obvious cure, but rather an assortment of things to try that might work. For depression, I’ve seen three different therapists practicing different types of therapy, taken four different dosages of one of three or four different anti-depressants, and had to gauge for myself the extent to which they’ve ‘worked’. Because of this, it’s easy to feel unsupported, different or other – there’s no prescribed cure guaranteed to make things better. Again, I don’t really have anything fun to say about this process; it’s exhausting, requiring constant battling to receive the support you need. It’s often undercut by people not believing you, because you’re perceived as mentally ill and unable to make decisions, ignoring the desire for self-improvement present in many sufferers. It’s taken me nearly three years to get towards an understanding, and I’m still not sure I’m entirely comfortable.

Neurodivergence, then, isn’t a ‘pick one’ deal. This doesn’t necessarily mean bad things. I’ve often felt that my dyslexia has helped me in my recovery; fourteen years of feeling othered gives a strong sense of what makes you feel good about yourself, something that I often harness. Being mentally ill has often made people more aware of the need to accommodate and adjust, something crucial for any dyslexic. None of these are ideal, of course, but they’re helpful. Part of my reason for writing this was to say what I wish I’d had said to me – there’s nothing weird or odd about experiencing multiple conditions. You’re not more broken or more wrong. You’re not an other on your own. Making serious changes towards understanding the intersectionality of disability requires more work than one blog post can achieve, but we can make a start. Perhaps you might use the phrase ‘neurodiversity’ rather than ‘neurodivergence’ to make people feel less othered. Perhaps you might think about how you can accommodate people’s needs in your life. Perhaps you just feel a bit angry that disabled people often have to pick only one condition to be treated. All of this helps, supports, and builds a better understanding of neurodiverse people. And if you, like me, have ever felt doubly broken? Well, that’s twice as hard you can bounce back.