“Neurodivergent Umbrella”

[ButWhysTheRumGone]

I saw a group as a suggestion on Facebook and was surprised by the things that the group states are under the ND umbrella. It’s a big umbrella that includes schizophrenia and bipolar. I thought they were both mental illnesses. Autism and ADHD and dyslexia and Down syndrome are not mental illnesses and I’m failing to see how these are under this same, very large, umbrella. I might be behind on what classes as ND now even though I’m both autistic and ADHD. Is it just a load of Facebook bollocks? Photo might take a while to upload.

Its all gone a bit trans

There is a typo in 'misophonia'....

Schizophrenia is certainly neuro divergence.

There have been medics for decades (in fact, I think it was first suggested over 100 year ago) that believe Bipolar disorder is actually a neurological condition.

And another one in “synesthesia”. Doesn’t exactly fill you with confidence, does it?

Notice they have added epilepsy as well🤷‍♀️.

While it’s wrong as it’s a jumble of physical illness, mental illness and disorders, it doesn’t surprise me at all frankly. Once they did the ASD umbrella so now everyone, who is incredibly different and affected very differently in functioning has exactly the same thing🙄. That’s what they are going for here, that’s where this is leading. Nuts.

This is why neurodivergence isn't a very helpful concept in my opinion. For it to work people have to be divided into two groups, neurotypical and neurodivergent. Most of the time, people use neurodivergent to mean Autism and ADHD. So by definition, everyone else must be neurotypical, which is silly since so many other conditions also affect the brain.
But if you try to lump every single condition that affects the brain under neurodivergent, (like that graph seems to be trying to do), then it's also not helpful, as those conditions are so drastically different and affect people in wildly different ways! Plus, there's no clear biological or diagnostic definition of what neurotypical actually is, it's all a bit vague.
People also get neurodivergence confused with Neurodiversity, which is the idea that human brains vary naturally and that these differences should be recognised as a form of diversity, rather than as disorders. They're two different ideas really.
I have a neurological condition (not Autism or Adhd), and I wouldn't call myself either ND or NT.
I think it's better to just say the specific condition or conditions that you mean as it's much clearer. Obviously people can refer to themselves personally as whatever they choose, but when we are talking about the language used by education, the NHS, companies, I really think neurodivergence isn't helpful.

I think I’ll go with saying autism
and ADHD. Under ND I could be anything!

This makes me wonder if there is a condition equivalent to misophonia that means some people can’t tolerate spelling and grammar mistakes 🤔

I mean brain injury shouldn’t be there if it means- this is what neurodivergence is. However all of those conditions can present with symptoms that are neurodivergent.

I was pointing out that if someone wants to include all possible conditions under an unclear label, they could at least spell them correctly 🤷‍♀️ also, for some reason they have been interestingly selective in their choices, throwing together neurological as well as mental health conditions - omitting a whole range of personality disorders including only those from cluster B, and I had to google HPO. They also missed dyscalculia, language disorders and - much more obvious ND - learning disability.

This made me laugh out loud. I totally agree, I don't think lumping all these extremely different conditions together is helpful in the slightest, and it absolutely hasn't been helpful in the trans situation either. Great analogy in fact.

I have bipolar and ADHD. I see bipolar disorder is on this image. They can piss the hell off with this shit. It was clearly written by someone who doesn’t know the difference between ND, personality disorders and serious debilitating mental illnesses. People like that can get to fuck with trying to co opt my illness for their FB likes.

Spreading misinformation about mental health is why people don’t understand my illness. At all. And constantly tell me I’m “too nice” to have it. There aren’t enough swear words in the world to express how I feel about this toss.

But do us a favour and don’t spread it around. Some vulnerable person somewhere will believe it, decide they are ND instead of having a serious mental illness, go off their meds and put their life at risk.

The whole concept of 'neurodiversity' is so vague as to be meaningless and unhelpful. Does the brain of someone with severe learning disability, autism and treatment resistant epilepsy really have much in common with the brain of a university graduate with mild dyslexia?

Misophonia isn't anymore a medical or developmental condition any more than having a fear of clowns - real and unpleasant, but not a medical problem.

Synesthesia isn't well understood in terms of cause but it's reasonable to think of it as similar to having perfect pitch - a normal variation in human development, and definitely not a medical problem.

Just to be clear, I wasn’t having a dig! I’m genuinely wondering, as I suffer from it myself to a large extent 😆 (pedantry, that is, not misophonia)

Ooh pedantry should definitely go under that umbrella!

I am ND and I hate these graphic things. I saw another one that had depression under it. How amazing it would be to have an episode of neurodivergence then take meds and have therapy and be cured of it.
Who is making them anyway? I think it is Facebook bollocks.

As a parent of a child who's severely autistic (and has co-morbid LDs) I honestly don't see the POINT of having a 'Neurodiversity Umbrella'!! Who the feck is that meant to benefit? Is there some comfort in 'being under the umbrella' all together? Is someone who has ADHD meant to feel some sort of fellowship with someone who's schizophrenic?? I know damn well my son, who's 14 yo but has an approximate cognitive age of about 3/4, feels no fellowship with anyone else on this graphic!

Several of these (schizophrenia, bipolar, epilepsy, etc) are mental health conditions, they are NOT 'just part of the spectrum' of being 'neurodiverse' FFS. In addition, others on that list can come about in various ways - dyscalculia, for example, can be seen in adults who've had brain trauma (eg an accident) in adulthood!

This is more and more offensive the longer I look at it, actually! DH is a cognitive scientist, I won't type out what he just said when he looked over my shoulder...

This is basically identity politics - very much akin to the LGBTQ++ 'umbrella' wherein a lot of extremely diverse sexualities, gender expressions/identities and DSDs are lumped in together. To what end? I think some people find it to their advantage to muddy the waters, blur the lines and make out that some things are absolutely analogous with other things...

Yes, where IS learning disability? Ha, it's the untrendy neurodiversity tribe that nobody wants to identify into! 🙄

Exactly. I have synaesthesia and I knew that I had it in 1997 and knew the name back then too. It's really nothing new. I don't like how all of a sudden it is now consider as ND. Yes it is a neurological condition but it's not ND imo.

@CinnamonCinnabar - I have perfect pitch as well in that synaesthesia gives me coloured hearing, so I hear / "see" the notes as colours, which means I can tell what key the music is in. Again I don't consider this as ND.

"ND" is being thrown about willy nilly, to the point that it's down-playing / lessening people who are genuinely on the spectrum.