Neurodivergence and Humble Pie
A few hectic weeks later, here we are, back and better than ever- and with a new topic to delve into.
Recently, I was approached by someone in my life who reads my blog regularly- I was both touched and appreciative. This person made mention of something I hadn’t considered, and this is where the humble pie comes in. I am not so arrogant as to believe I know EVERYTHING on the subject of health/medicine/food/etc, but just knowledgeable enough to feel I have a pretty good grip on it. Stick a pin in the slice of pie I happily ate this last week, I’ll get back to it shortly.
I have probably made mention of my interesting and somewhat frustrating childhood- it was frustrating for my parents, I am sure, because I was diagnosed with ADHD at a fairly young age. My mother spent a solid heroic decade keeping me from processed sugars as much as humanly possible rather than medicate me with Ritalin. When I did partake in sweet treats, I got wild and out of control- the blood sugar spikes made my behavior unpredictable and often destructive. It is only in my adult years that I look back at my childhood with a sense of A-Ha- that the spectrum of disorders we know as “neurodivergence” isn’t just for an autism diagnosis (which is commonly known) but rather, any inner working of the brain that causes disruption to everyday life.
As an adult, I’ve made my ADHD tendencies work for me. I have a series of systems that work for me that I have developed so that I am able to live a normal life, although, normal, my life certainly has NOT been. My sense of going from thing to thing to thing to thing has actually proved to be a boon for me in a career such as the construction estimating job I held for nearly 3.5 years- because in construction, you can be tunneling intensely into some project and be hyperfocused, and then your phone rings with some fire that must be put out immediately. While you’re putting out that fire, three other little fires pop up, and now your attention must be equally split between four things that must all be done RIGHT THIS SECOND. And when you’re finished with all those minor crises, you must go back to your first project and jump back in without re-acclimating, because it’s two hours worth of work and you have exactly two hours and 15 minutes to get it out the door, thanks to your workday interruptions.
These tendencies pop up in my home life as well. Say it’s 4pm and I’m considering starting dinner. I tell my husband, “I’m going to start prepping for dinner.” And then five minutes later, he sees me putting a load of laundry into the wash. Why? Well you see, I pulled everything out to make dinner, but noticed I only had one clean dish towel left, so I figured that while I was prepping dinner, I might as well be doing laundry at the same time so that I’m doing two things at once. And then I start actually prepping said dinner, but then halt that to finish loading the dishwasher as well, so that I have room in the sink for the dinner dishes, and now it’s thirty minutes after I said I was going to “begin” prepping dinner, and I’ve only sliced the onions yet. This is typical for me. Ask my husband. To him, it’s beyond strange, but to me, it’s efficient- if I can do three chores at once, I’m really saving time, right? I will often spend a Saturday doing 5% of twelve different chores at a time. Halfway through my day, the entire home is a wreck- far worse than when I started- but by the end of the day, I will have successfully completed 10 out of 12 chores, with the final two about half done. But I will almost never, ever start a project and then sit down and finish it all at once. That is pretty much inconceivable to me.
In doing some research this week, I learned that the pioneers of autism research are Leo Kanner and Hans Asperger. In the 40’s, Kanner specialized more in early-infantile autism, and Kanner researched more into what is considered “high functioning” autism, though both on the same spectrum. The name “autism” was coined by a psychiatrist named Eugen Bleuler in 1908- and it was a way to identify a schizophrenic who was withdrawn in their own inner world. This, unfortunately, is something that I personally have some experience with- not an autism diagnosis specifically, but after my traumatic brain injury, I spent nearly a year inside of my own head and didn’t have the capacity to interact with the outside world. This was in 2021, so Covid lockdowns were still active and most people were antisocial at this time anyway. I had my work (the construction project estimating) and I had my home- which, at the time, was a 500 square foot, 1 bedroom coffin of an apartment that my husband and I shared. It was not an easy year. All our belongings were stuffed into this tiny home and I spent most of that year barely speaking. It was misery for my husband who tells me that he loves the sound of my voice. The worst part, being a musical child, I didn’t sing much. I think I understand as much as a person can about being a non-verbal prisoner inside of your own head. When I was in that state, I would have done anything to wave a magic wand and get myself out of it. I know myself to be a vibrant, lovely, extroverted human being who loves people and loves to be funny and whimsical and silly, so that year was abject terrified misery for me as well, because I knew I was not myself. I know that parents of vaccine-injured children who withdraw into themselves and later get an autism diagnosis feel the same- that their child was stolen from them and that they’d do anything to get them back.
I will also add this- what I know about formally diagnosed autistic children is summed up into three categories- first, the nonverbal, non-responsive children with frustrated parents whose lives are a struggle (and I see testimonials of said parents online all the time), second, a reference to the first type of child in a series of fictional books by an author who is also a physician (The Touch- by F Paul Wilson. A doctor ends up with a mysterious supernatural power to heal, but every healing takes from him physically, and his final act of healing before his powers cripple him and put him into a wheelchair is to heal the nonverbal, non-responsive autistic son of the woman he loves) and third, a personal story of a friend of mine who struggles with social cues and told me more than once that she -hates- being autistic. I know her to be a wonderful person who pushes herself to work hard and exhausts herself with trying to push through a normal life, but it is also clear that she struggles, and again, has voiced so to me on numerous occasions.
These few exposures to what I know about autism is what led me to say what I said a few blog posts ago regarding mothers who cured their children’s autism with raw milk kefir- and where the humble pie slice comes in. The loved one of mine who I spoke to within the last week said a statement that I have rolled around in my head for days now. “Holly, autistic people don’t want to be “cured.”
Huh.
It is only through this revealing conversation that I truly see what the DSM-5 categorizes as “neurodivergence” disorders- simply a way of one’s brain operating. And it truly is a spectrum, ranging from the “Well, I guess I’ll just rock being weird” (my perspective) to a wheelchair bound autistic child with a feeding tube. In my case, imagine if you woke up one day and you pushed a block on your table forward, only to have it slide right. You push it right, and it slides backwards. With enough patience and determination, you could learn a system so that you knew exactly how to push the block to make it go the way you wanted it to go 100% of the time. That’s kind of what it felt like to rebuild my life after my traumatic brain injury- that every day I have to wake up and remind myself I have to pull backwards if I want something to go left, but at this point for me, it’s old hat- it’s very rare that I’m surprised by the block going in the wrong direction than I intended. To this day, I still randomly pull either the word “oven” or “freezer” when my brain searches for the word for an extreme temperature appliance, no matter which one I actually mean. That is the best example I can give of retraining my brain so that it works correctly-enough for dealing with every day life. And I am completely humbled by the people in my life who, despite potential learning difficulties, or social anxieties, or food aversions, or struggles in general- say, “You know, I like me the way I am.”
It’s also led me down a path of thinking that most modern psychology is trying to classify normal personality behaviors as a diagnosis that needs medication. Of course, I don’t see this as such a stretch, considering what I know about the medical industry and their desire to sell pills to as many people as possible. I don’t think people’s personalities can be classified into categories or that they ALL need pills in order to function. Some people’s lives are genuinely biochemically challenged, and modern medicine has allowed them to live a normal, happy, and successful life, and good on them! But I also generally believe that we are drastically overprescribing and that a lot of people’s mental discomforts could be solved through dietary changes.
I refer again to the study that started my brain on the path to healing- the Stanford study that proved that a ketogenic diet improves severe mental illness.
I fully admit that I tried several times to try and figure out how to include the link directly to the study in my blog, and it fought me the whole way, and now I have decided that my mental health is more important than spending the next hour trying to get the link to work. Y’all are smart cookies, however, so simply searching Stanford Ketogenic Diet will bring you where you want to go.
The long and short of it- my mother was doing more for my mental health by limiting my sugars than I could ever understand at the time. For those of us whose brains push forward and the block goes right, processed sugars and carbs will only muddy the waters of these big, beautiful brains. I can say for certain that once I started to get the hang of the keto journey, I have uncovered my brain from the garbage it used to swim in, and now it’s paddling like a champ. It took a lot of trial and error, a lot of supplements, a lot of patience with myself, and a lot of self-kindness, but I, too, got off the road of “wishing I was different” to the road of, “You know, I’m quirky, and that’s how God made me.”
And so I close with thanks- thanks for my loved one who showed enough courage and self-love to tell me I was wrong, and thanks to all people in my life with all kinds of brains- mostly for putting up with my “push forward, go right” noggin. My mom especially, who did more for my mental health during my entire life than I ever truly appreciated.
Next week- More regarding what I generally eat, and a few recipes!
