AIBU to ask you what a "neurotypical" person is like?

[SplishSplash123]

I am a bit intrigued as to whether it's reasonable to think that NT people are put on a bit of a pedestal at times and assumed to have none of the issues that ND people have, when in reality I think most of us (NT and ND) have areas of strength and weakness and it's perfectly possible for someone to be NT and procrastinate/be forgetful/struggle with time blindness etc.

This comes from a debate with a friend recently where she said a parking fine should be voided if someone has ADHD because they have a reasonable excuse. She didn't accept my argument that it would then be just as valid for someone without ADHD, who might generally be forgetful, or who was simply having a very stressful day, to have also had a reasonable excuse.

I also see this in work sometimes, where people without reasonable adjustment passports are told to "get on" with things they struggle with (e.g. having to spend more time answering the phones to cover for colleagues who have had this part of their job taken away from them) without any understanding that this can be stressful and draining for some NT people too.

To be clear, I'm not saying people with ND don't have any right to reasonable adjustments/reasonable excuses etc (I believe they absolutely do!) but to want to acknowledge that we can all struggle with things at times and need a bit of understanding/support.

I don’t think neurotypicals exist. I believe that everyone has traits of neurodivergence some more or less than others in different areas for whatever reason. Coping better or worse for whatever reason. no longer want a label, no longer say I am autistic I just said I am whywasiborbtoolate. I just go by my birth name. There is no best way to describe me as these diagnoses are too varied and broad. The best way to describe me is by my name and to get to know me for the way that i am.

The best way I can describe it is: think of the brain like an internet browser. An NT brain might have a handful of different tabs open, so you might have to flick about a bit to find the page you need, or might accidentally close the browser window occasionally, but generally speaking you can find things when you need them.

An ADHD brain will have about 100 different tabs open at the same time, often in several different windows. Lots of these tabs will be the same information multiple times, quite a few will be broken links and at least half are open on something you were meant to order/confirm/send/read but haven’t got round to yet. The entire thing will crash several times a day because you’ve too many tabs open, you can’t find anything, and your solution is probably to just buy a new phone or laptop and start again so you don’t have to deal with the stress of trying to unpick it all, only to then do exactly the same thing again.

The point it’s a law made to get people working who otherwise couldn’t, ie. people who physically cannot push through these things or know that if they do they’ll go home and enter freeze mode or need to hide, scream and cry.

These episodes are upsetting and draining and take up entire evenings that were supposed to be for life responsibilities and resting. Too much of this and you cross a line where you don’t function for months to years. And everyone at home is affected by all of this.

Your colleagues are either there working with adjustments or unemployed with tax payers angry at them for not contributing.

I have adhd. It's very clear from your post, OP, that you don't have any idea of what it's like to live with adhd. But then, why should you? If you haven't experienced it yourself or been very close to it, then you probably can't imagine how incredibly difficult it can make daily life.

I don't agree with your friend's thoughts about the parking ticket, and I don't think that being ND should ever be any kind of "get out of jail free" card. However, I do understand why she said it and I don't think a NT person being a bit forgetful is at all comparable.

Or their adhd is so severe that they have forgotten they have adhd and how it effects them

May I ask if your DC has an intellectual disability or not? Sorry if that’s intrusive. You just reminded me of my DC who has autism without an ID but who will probably never live independently. I find people all too often assume no ID means people are capable of school, work etc…but sometimes they’re just not.

Sorry, that was off the point. I too think it’s a difference of degree or scale OP… but you’ll have people on either side of the diagnostic cutoff, just.

Oh yes everyone who is neuro Divergent definitely has their own strength and weaknesses that differ from each other, it's why it can be a really cool situation if you get the right group of neurodivergent and neurotypical people working together around a good project or something like that, they all can have very different manners of thinking which can be unique to a situation as such as that. To be honest, I'm talking as someone who is considered to be neurodivergent in terms of having ADHD, having aspergers or autism (ASD), and other things I struggle with every day, in all honesty sometimes especially now that I am a mom and sometimes some of those things now stand out more to me than they did in the past.

@woolshop my husband has a very successful corporate career. However, I do feel that he is cut quite a lot of slack because he's a nice guy. I remember visiting his office to take our newborn in to meet his colleagues 16 years ago, and his desk was an absolute state. When I jokingly mentioned it, a couple of his colleagues said that they regularly tidied it for him. I suspect they also did other things for him.
He often works late into the night (because he's procrastinated or just not organised himself), and I know he's habitually late - for work, for meetings, for deadlines. Last year they had a conference at a hotel and he somehow managed to go to the wrong hotel because he had told himself it was somewhere else and didn't check. They weren't even close - they were 30 miles a part.

It's actually restful at the moment because he's away. There's no clutter left around the house, and everything is ready for tomorrow, and I don't have to worry about what's lost. It does make me sad, it affects our children in so many ways. But his ADHD isn't all of him, and he's a great dad in many other ways (and the kids know to make arrangements with me).

This is all very interesting, but again I think you're proving my point - you're focusing on ND people and diagnosis of ND, but not addressing the fact that NT people might need support in specific instances too.

I'm not saying ND people don't need support, I'm pointing out that EVERYONE would benefit from being supported to the extent that they need it - and if a ND and a NT person suffered from some "trait" to the same extent (i.e. looking at a specific issue in isolation) that both of them should benefit from the same support.

What you're not seeing is that if an NT person experiences ONE area of dysfunction, they can probably use another stronger area to cover it. So with the parking thing, they might be forgetful, but they probably have the executive function to set a reminder on their phone, look at the reminder, and know what to do about it. For someone with ADHD, that whole sequence is likely to be nigh on unmanageable, because they aren't ONLY forgetful, they also have executive function problems, and and...

An ND diagnosis is MULTIPLE areas of dysfunction, not one that your stronger areas can compensate for. I do agree that we should support everyone as best we can, and TBH I prefer non-punitive approaches to, well, everything, but being ND isn't a bit of difficulty in one area, it is pervasive.

When a person has ADHD or autism or any other ND it’ll mean they have a range of symptoms across a range of areas.
so, for me I have executive disfunction where I struggle to organise myself, get a task started, get a task finished, etc.
l also have a lot of sensory issues, things I can’t wear, touch, smell, hear that cause me distress and sometimes physical reactions.
l also struggle socially and just don’t understand a lot of social norms, they don’t make sense to me. I’m not good at friendships, I’m not good at talking to strangers, people think I’m weird a lot of the time.

so, whilst a NT person might have difficulties ik one of those areas it’s unlikely they’ll have difficulties in all of them to a degree it’s affecting their life. If they do…then they’re not NT.

Not another thread about how ND people are overexaggerating their difficulties to the detriment of NT people. It's only been about a week since the last one.

Well you've woefully misunderstood the thread then. Where have I suggested ND people overexaggerate their difficulties?

Women with ADHD get menopausal on top of ADHD. And we’ve struggled for decades before it as well.

Menopause is shit. Imagine that all your life.

But no, although we do pay the ADHD tax, and life is more expensive and more difficult, I still think we should pay fines if we get them. A bit of sympathy wouldn’t go amiss though.

There are lots of other issues someone can have that can cause problems with memory and executive function or other difficulties. But 'ND' is only generally used to refer to autism or Adhd, and everyone else is assumed to be 'NT'. I don't think the ND/NT thing makes sense.

I think you are not wrong OP.

I, like most people, have things I struggle with. Procrastinating, certain kinds of orderliness, administrative work. I have a really hard time managing things like bills or payments, car maintenance. Keeping my car tidy because once it's out of sight I forget about it, and when I get in and notice again, I am on my way somewhere. When I was younger I had prett crippling social anxiety, to the point of sometimes feeling that people around e (on the bus) for example could read my thoughts. I knew that was not true, but I felt like it could be true.

I've paid a heck of a lot of extra interest and penalties over the years doe to my administrative issues. I used to say that I was a major supporter of the local library because my fines were so bad. The only reason that isn't true now is because the library has no fines - and I work there, but still can't remember to bring my books back. There have been times it's impacted my life in big ways - I did not pursue a graduate degree because I couldn't keep up with that kind of disciplined study as a student, for example. There are things I really wanted to do but my social anxiety stopped me.

This is life for a lot of people. Or other struggles. Struggle with change. Not fitting in. All kinds of things. For myself, some things I learned to accept - I know I am not going to be able to complete some kinds of education, even though I am smart enough to understand the concepts. I have found other things to do instead that are better suited. Other things, like my social anxiety, I have largely conquered.

The idea that an average person with add should get out of a parking fine is ridiculous. People need to learn to manage things like this.

And you think everyone else just can? And should have to?

A bit OT, but sometimes the best way to try and tackle this is to try and deal with the sleep issues that are typical for peri and post menopausal women.

But absolutely it makes these symptoms so much worse.

Threads like this annoy the living daylights out of me. It’s just an excuse to bash on autism and ADHD. I haven’t read any of the comments but I’m sure people will be along to say how it’s not a thing and ‘everyone is on the spectrum’ and complain about the increased diagnosis rates yadayada…

It isn’t really that complicated. Everyone can have traits of these conditions, but there’s a huge difference between being a ‘bit forgetful’ some days and actually having a condition that makes you like it ALL THE TIME.

To be diagnosed with these conditions, you have to have significant impairments in multiple areas; on a level that has a negative effect on your life every. single. day!

Nobody is saying neurotypical people can’t have traits of these conditions too, of course they can. It isn’t some exclusive club. But do you suffer from these things to such an extent, on a daily basis, that it’s actually debilitating?

Why do so many people define everyone who doesn't have autism or adhd as neurotypical?

No idea, I didn’t choose the word. I’m not a particularly huge fan of it, it’s just a quicker way of saying it than ‘people who don’t have ADHD or Autism’. (Or dyspraxia, dyslexia and so on).

Why do we call people with penises men?

But there are lots of other conditons which affect the brain apart from autism and adhd. But neurotypical is mostly used to refer to anyone who doesnt have autism or adhd.

I never said there wasn’t, I even mentioned that there were others in my second comment. I think a lot of people don’t know that it includes other conditions because ND is mainly used in the context of autism and ADHD. Also, things like dyslexia can be less obvious than autism for example. If you know a lot about autism you can spot signs in other autistic people. You only really know if someone is dyslexic if they tell you or you see something they’ve written. So even if someone knows it encompasses other conditions, you could wrongly assume someone is ‘NT’ if they don’t have obvious traits and/or don’t tell you otherwise.

Of course there are, I don’t think anyone is claiming that only ND people have memory issues or executive function issues. It’s a ND when the reason for those issues is adhd, autism, ocd, pda, spd, dyspraxia or any
oyher things that falls under the ND umbrella term.

consider it this way, if you have excruciating stomach pain, it could be because you have appendicitis, but it could also be because you have an ovarian cyst or stomach cancer or gastritis or you’ve been stabbed…but if you have excruciating stomach pain and a knife hanging out of your stomach, it’s not likely
you have appendicitis or stomach cancer. One Symptom can have lots of
causes, so that’s why when you are assessed for ASD or ADHD they consider other reasons for your symptoms to make sure its
not something else.

OP, I think you are making a valid point which is being massively misunderstood. NT people are not perfect, and while it’s in no way the same as being ND (though obviously this has a huge range of different experiences in itself), NT people can have weaknesses that are similar to some experiences of some ND people. In which case, it’s not the labels that need support but the people.