I was mindlessly scrolling TikTok the other day, and a video of a nurse giving advice about patient care came across my FYP. I immediately went down a rabbit hole of googling a bunch of the different information she was talking about, and before I knew it I had over a dozen browser tabs open and I was totally absorbed in learning about hyponatremia, osmotic demyelination syndrome, the neurophysiology of thirst, and on and on. I was sitting there looking at all my reading and I remembered how when I was a kid I used to LOVE to read a book my mom had about childhood illnesses, infections, injuries, etc.
I read the entire book over and over as a kid because I found it sooo interesting. I could study it for hours. It really helped with taking care of my siblings when they were sick sometimes too because I had essentially memorized a lot of the illnesses, symptoms, and treatments or at least knew exactly where to find the info in the book. I didn't realize that wasn't really a typical fascination that everyone had until recently. I used to get so confused when other people didn't know the same things I did, and especially when they didn't seem to even want to, because I thought everybody found it interesting and wanted to learn about it too. I ran into that with my near-obsession with studying pregnancy, childbirth, and lactation as well. I didn't understand how everyone else didn't want to know all this information, or even seemed bothered by it? And people I knew seemed weirded out or even concerned by how much I was interested in the medical details of it all.
I think I got a lot of my traits like that from my dad. :) He is a SUPER curious person. He loves to learn about anything medical, scientific, technological, etc. I had surgery for a tumor on the side of my head when I was 6 years old, and I remember my dad pointing out all the interesting stuff about the tests and scans to me, talking to me about the procedures and medications. I didn't feel afraid at all. It just made me curious and interested in the process. He didn't talk about it like it was something scary, just "Look at that!! You can see your blood going into the tube! Isn't that awesome???!" and it totally was to me. Thinking back, I'm sure part of it was that it was really interesting to him but also it was his unique way of trying to help me not be afraid. Its still how I approach medical situations for myself today. It didn't work on any of my siblings, and it doesn't work on my own kid either, but it totally worked well for me.
It dawned on me that this could probably qualify as a "special interest", and it probably worked for me because my dad and I share similar personality types, ways of thinking, etc.
3 of my 5 siblings have gotten an adult diagnosis of ADHD, autism, or both in the past few years. We all had a few conversations about it, and several of them brought up to me that they feel a lot of my traits and behaviors that my family struggled with in my childhood were probably related to me being neurodiverse also. We also discussed how both of my parents have a LOT of different traits of both ADHD and autism that affected the way we did things as a family, how we all related and interacted with eachother, and pretty much everything we did.
Its SO interesting to me seeing all of our personalities and behaviors from another perspective this way. Its also really heavy seeing the way things could have been different, better, if all of us (especially my parents!) would have been aware of their neurodivergence and gotten support for their unique needs and found ways to make things work for them.
I'm really glad it seems that a lot of us are doing this work now for ourselves as adults, and passing down that awareness and support to our kids.
Already my own child and my nieces and nephews are getting lots of support that all of us could have used as kids.
My mind has been totally blown by observing my kid and realizing that their dad has gone his whole life undiagnosed as well! I had absolutely no idea so much of his behavior was actually traits of the specific flavor of neurodiversity that they share until I started seeing the same patterns pop up in my kid that could not have been learned behavior.
I used to be super judgmental about it, I didn't understand how differently other peoples' brains worked and I thought a lot of differences were just a choice or a character flaw. I learned first hand how wrong that is.
So many of us have gone our entire life thinking that our different traits and behaviors were flaws that needed to be hidden or corrected. Some of it became the fuel for abuse and mistreatment by caretakers and people around us. We carried negative beliefs about ourselves into adulthood and it has held us back so much.
I'm really hopeful that we're moving closer to a day when those differences and support needs are just part of the normal spectrum of human existence in society.
Which really gets me thinking about how much work there is still to be done in disability activism.
If you haven't seen it yet, Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution is still streaming on Netflix, and its an awesome introduction to embracing the diversity of human experience, and how we can make the world more accessible to everyone with all different levels of support needs.
