Watch Me Disappear

Near the end of the consultation with the specialist who diagnosed me with Asperger's and ADHD, he remarked that autistic people often have "fringe" interests.  I replied, with some enthusiasm, that I have always had a love for horror and true crime, whether it be literature, films, comics, or games.  "Oh yes," he remarked, looking through his notes.  "Autistic people often have a fascination with violence."

I was struck dumb.  My love of horror was something I'd always felt integral to my personality, part of what made me uniquely me...and in less than ten words, this doctor had reduced it to a symptom.

One of the biggest conflicts about disability is whether or not our disabilities define us.  Many people will say flat out that they are more than their disability, that they are a person who is disabled, not a disabled person.  They are not defined by that disability.  But at the same time, when one's disability is literally in the way one's brain functions, not due to some accident or injury but due to a natural difference in the way it is structured, can one be anything but defined by it?

In many circles and in the excellent book Neurotribes it is argued that autism is not a "disability" in the classic sense of the term, but rather a variation on the natural structure and function of the human brain.  That the issue is not that we have anything wrong with us, but that society and culture are set up for the neurotypical majority.  We should not say "people with autism" the same way we would say "people with coronovirus", but rather "autistic people", for the simple reason that autism is not a disorder to be corrected or a disease to be cured - it is part of who we are.

It could be argued, I think, that the same is true of ADHD.  People with ADHD, I have found, tend to communicate and comprehend each other in a way that we simply cannot do with neurotypical people.  Oddly, the most apt comparison I have found is in the form of my dog.  

My dog is a greyhound, a breed that is among a particular subset of dogs known as "sighthounds".  In contrast to most other dog breeds which hunt and navigate primarily by scent, sighthounds, as their name implies, hunt and navigate by sight.  As a result, their behaviour and body language is slightly different than that of most other dogs, to the point that other dogs may avoid them or respond to them with aggression.  Sighthounds seem to travel among other dogs with a vague air of befuddlement and wounded confusion, unable to understand why interactions go wrong so often.  But when two or more sighthounds meet, there is an almost palpable air of relief and delight. Finally, they seem to say, someone who speaks my language!  Someone whose brain works like mine!  

And that is how I have felt when meeting others with ADHD.  We easily fall into conversation with each other.  The natural tension I feel when interacting with other people falls away.  There's an ease in our body language and a natural warmth in our speech.  Finally, someone who speaks my language!  Someone whose brain works like mine!

But that brings me back to my fundamental question.  

The more I read about autism and ADHD, the more I see myself in the descriptions and the anecdotes.  Yes, I have done that.  Yes, I feel that way.  Yes, that happened to me.  And the more I find the parts of my life, the characteristics that I thought made me myself, are instead fairly common to autistic people and those with ADHD.  I have never had a particularly strong sense of self, and realising this is on the one hand a relief ("Oh, thank God, I'm not the only one,") and leaves me with a frightening feeling of being unmoored.  If all of these things are simply part of my disabilities/disorders, then what can I definitively call part of me?  Are these character traits, or are they symptoms?

I suppose that in coming to accept that I am an autistic person, I am a woman with ADHD, I may come to accept all of this, whether they be unique traits or symptoms, as part of the grand tapestry that is myself.  Perhaps it's my own inherent resistance to seeing myself as disabled that makes me even use the word "symptoms" to describe these traits.  Somehow, I need to come to terms with the fact that these characteristics can both be something that is true of many autistic people and people with ADHD and part of who I uniquely am.

But it's not easy.  Sometimes it feels like the more I find out about my disabilities, the more I disappear.