I wasn’t a hyperactive little boy getting into playground fisticuffs, throwing wet toilet paper wads on to the ceiling of the change rooms, or aiming paper aeroplanes into another student’s eyeball. I was an energetic little girl, who would sing and dance and draw, defy gravity on the playground equipment, ride for hours on a BMX, make mud pies, and collect snails.
Boys seemed to be able to just be who they inherently were as the grating expression “Boys will be boys” was afforded to them. “He has ADHD just let him be” was a perfectly acceptable justification for any boy to climb walls and skip class to kick balls around and burn off extra energy.
Energetic girls on the other hand? It was a constant stream of “Sit down, be quiet, please remember your manners, ladies don’t jump around, ssshhh, play quietly, sit still” …drone, drone… Very soon, most girls have been boxed in and suppressed to fit an outdated gender norm, personalities forced to turn the volume down low, learning differences hiding in plain sight, pent up energy leading to irritability, and voices taught they need to take a back seat to authority and let the boys be boys.
If you’re a girl ticking all the academic boxes, it’s not common for early education to identify differences deemed to need attention or promotion. For boys though, they’re commonly labelled little Einstein’s if they’re moderately bright. If you’re a boy who talks a lot, you have such a big vocabulary. If you’re a girl, you’re a chatterbox.
If you’re an athletic and creative girl, you’re initially applauded for being gifted and talented, and encouraged to do some more kartwheels before sitting quietly to colour-in beautifully. If you’re an athletic and creative boy, you’re talent scouted and given a scholarship for a sports team which often leads to an early and profitable sporting career.
I could go on, apparently I do have ADHD (a label that has been offered to me much later in life) so trust me when I say I could go on! (It’s just that conditioning taught me to silence my voice so much, that I either don’t talk enough when expected to or I talk too much when I shouldn’t)
What did I learn in school? Lots, I love learning, along with all the good things I also learned a fair bit about confusion and conformity. I talk too much, talk less. I’m hyperactive, try not to be. I have too many ideas all at once, try not to. I talk too fast, try to talk slower (fail). I have so many activities, interests and hobbies, I must be exhausted. I am so different for a girl, I don’t fit in. I ask so many questions, adults don’t like questions they can’t answer… and so on. I remember politely telling a primary school teacher she had misspelled a word on the blackboard, she corrected it, but she also never called on me again to answer questions.
Growing up I lived for dancing, sports, anything active and creative, academics, and that continues to this day. I have lots of energy, and just assumed others didn’t. But I didn’t fit in. I speak fast and to me it’s just normal, but I became used to suppressing my voice if others couldn’t keep up. I have lots of ideas and would often stockpile them to avoid being accused of gatecrashing a collaboration. When others would repeatedly react with intrigue, shock, confusion, and then rejection when they learned of my varied interests and involvements, I unfortunately learned to stop advertising all the things I was good at. I was different, but I was just me, so I always wondered why it seemed so difficult to ‘fit in’.
As much as I wanted to be included and accepted, I never wanted to be just like everyone else. I treasure my creative, curious and critical thinking skills. I wouldn’t swap my interest in fitness and movement for anything else. I like being able to swap between being academically minded, creatively led, fitness inspired, and sometimes just sitting with my own ongoing train of thoughts pondering the why and how of any random topic. I also wouldn’t swap the incredibly difficult lessons I’ve had to learn from much adversity, even if sometimes I wish the path had been somewhat kinder. However, it has been quite an independent and sometimes outcast journey.
I often wondered why I ended up in unbelievable situations and tragedy-comedy scenarios, I chalked it up to a dodgy lack of luck, and a never-ending situationship with Murphy’s Law. (If this sounds familiar, have you considered you may neurodivergent trying to fit into a world that is simply not currently designed for us to thrive in?)
After a lifetime of difference, hilarity, much adversity, plenty of adventure, roads less travelled, busy roads of commotion, indifference, confusion, tragedy, success, rejection, misunderstandings, originality, and loads of candle burning, I hit a reasonably large brick wall with considerate force and soon after had the ADHD sticker stuck on my forehead. Being a bit of an anti-labeller, I promptly tattooed the neurodiversity symbol near my wrist. It’s a dual-statement of a middle-finger salute to the notion of ‘labelling’, combined with proud ownership over said ‘label’ that basically determines I don’t sit neatly in the middle of the neurodiverse bell curve. Thank f&#! for that. I definitely wouldn’t say I’m a huge fan of average beige.
It finally made sense why I was always questioning the levels of ineptitude and stupor of the majority of society, convinced I was from another planet. I told a friend this after being labelled neurodivergent and they said “Oh, so now you know you were wrong, society isn’t that dumb and slow?”
I was silent for for a few incredulously long seconds, before responding “Um, no, now I understand why they are”… and we laughed and laughed, until he abruptly stopped to consider my response and just looked totally miffed. I’m also very aware of how (incorrectly) arrogant that reply may be perceived by those confounded by a Tim Minchin sense of humour.
FYI & Clarity: According to the internet, the views expressed above are clearly labelled as the views of Tim Minchin.
After a lifetime of things not adding up, not really fitting in, being misunderstood, having inexplicable levels of energy and curiosity, a gargantuan range of emotions, ideas and opinions combined oddly with sound logic, and a list of interests, vocations, and hobbies that make most people dizzy, finally a label may help to understand why (while my inner ‘what ifs’ play mind ping-pong questioning the different roads life may have taken if I had been labelled younger. Pointless reflection really). What sad times we live in when anything outside of the ‘average norm’ needs to be labelled and interpreted as some sort of deficit instead of considered and regarded for inherent uniqueness and abilities.
I have so many opinions, views, and ideas for education on why neurodiversity is a critically important part of human growth, development, and evolution. Refocusing the lens to a strengths based view as opposed to a deficit led narrative is critical, and those ideas are for other posts and plans. This blog was written for the following consideration only…
So, you’re neurodivergent, now what?
I now completely understand why I’d never swap who I am to fit in a neurotypical box.
Learn to be ok with not fitting in authentically 🦁
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