Stigmas Are So Yesterday, Part 1
Is there a stigma that has you afraid to be truly authentic?
This post was originally published in January 2024. With the tumult and chaos and general unhinged nature of the world at large, I needed to revisit it. If you feel overwhelmed or upside down, reach out to friends, family or a mental health professional. We all need help sometimes.
stig·ma
/ˈstiɡmə/
noun
1.
a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person.
Being a descendant of enslaved peoples from Africa there are always stigmas to deal with, too many to name here. I am going to concentrate on just one today.
Neurodiversity
This term was completely new to me until I heard it from a fascinating person named Dr. Miyabe Shields who studies the endocannabinoid system in our bodies. She described how she embraced the term neurodivergent as affirming. Having a neurodivergent mind doesn’t mean you are lesser than, just different. Neurodivergence is the norm for me. I grew up with it, grew up in it and as I have become educated in it, see it throughout my family.
Neurodiversity in an umbrella term that covers many differing things, ADHD, Autism, Depression, Anxiety, Dyslexia, OCD, Bipolar and many other brain differences. Neurodivergent people process things differently in their brains not the “typical” way.
In my youth, any form of mental illness, atypical thinking or behavior were things that were not discussed. In the African American communities of the late 1960’s and 1970’s seeking treatment for any neurodivercity just wasn’t done. Just wasn’t spoken about. Just wasn’t acknowledged. Everyone had the crazy aunt or uncle you would gossip about at large family gatherings during the holidays. But that was the extent of it. You couldn’t have a chink in the armor that you wore for the outside world to see. As a black person you had to blend in, or more truthfully, be invisible to white society.
My mother would have been considered neurodivergent. She struggled with some type of learning disorder, and was the youngest child with older siblings who excelled in school. She was teased and bullied for being stupid, which she wasn’t, but when your grades are lower than the older siblings that’s what happens. But she took that horrible word stupid to heart, and it stayed with her almost until she died. I say almost because when she had terminal cancer I was her caregiver. Once we got over all our mother/daughter bullshit (that’s another essay entirely!) we would talk about life and stuff. One day she angrily referred to herself as stupid because she was having difficulty with something and I stopped her and told her she wasn’t stupid, just had some sort of learning disability which was never diagnosed. She kind of looked stunned and thought about it for a second. I’d like to think she took it to heart and allowed herself some grace.
My sister is considered neurodivergent. Going back to that Keeping up with the Joneses mentality, everyone acting like Leave it to Beaver, there was no room for a young black girl who had mood swings, was uncomfortably shy, but also danced onstage in high school musicals. A young woman who had crippling depression, but no one would even think about taking her to a psychiatrist. Many people in the African American community considered mental illness a sign of weakness, you were supposed to just keep on keeping on. My sister was finally diagnosed as being Bipolar and began to receive treatment. But the stigma was still there. My parents were hush hush about it, the cousins would make snide remarks about it. All because it wasn’t understood, and nobody seemed to want to understand it.
I am considered neurodivergent. I wasn’t born with it, mine came about as a result of trauma. When I graduated from culinary school I moved from San Francisco to Brooklyn, NY. I loved it, even though I knew no one. I gradually made friends, and was able to buy a studio apartment with amazing views of Manhattan! Not only did I have a huge terrace, but being on the 10th floor there was nothing between my little apartment and Manhattan but air. I overlooked the Brooklyn Naval Yard, the East River and lower Manhattan. The twin towers of the World Trade Center were like my neighbors. I would sometimes raise a glass to them and their beauty. So when 9/11/2001 happened it was eventually too much for my brain to comprehend. I felt the shockwave of first planes impact. I looked out the window, saw the tower and fire and instinctively grabbed my camera. I wanted to be able to send pictures back home to friends and family in California. Then I watched the second plane hit, or more accurately took a picture of the second plane right before it hit. As I lowered the camera the explosion from the impact happened, followed seconds later by the intense shockwave. Right about then my brain started twerk, for lack of a better word.
I stood on my beautiful terrace with my 9 months pregnant neighbor Carol (her hospital was in lower Manhattan) and watched those buildings burn and fall. I had worked for catering companies in lower Manhattan for a number of years, and our clients were the big finance groups located in the World Trade and Word Financial building across the West Side Highway. The time of impact to the time of complete collapse was a woefully short time, not enough to evacuate those buildings, which Carol and I discussed as we fought against losing our shit. Did I mention she was 9 months pregnant and her hospital was in lower Manhattan?! My brain continued to twerk, its lobes vibrating like Cardi B’s ass. I don’t remember much more of that day except getting in car to go to the store for food, being stopped by a young white man asking for a ride to the Brooklyn Bridge. His wife and son were walking home across the bridge, having survived the horror. I drove him down there and wished him well. I didn’t know how he would be able to find them because every single person walking off that bridge was covered in white dust from the collapsed building, like zombies looking for brains. My brain kept twerking though now Cardi B was on one side and Meghan thee Stallion on the other. That night was the first of many that I would wake up screaming. A PTSD diagnosis followed, along with medical care that helped my recovery. But the thing with PTSD is you always have it, and I still live with many aspects of it today.
My daughter is neurodivergent. She struggles with social anxiety and self image, even as she is and has always been an A- student. (A- because there’s always one goddamn B lurking in her grades.) Some of her neural differences are genetic. Her grandmother had anxiety, I have anxiety and depression, her aunt is Bipolar. She has cousins who are neurodivergent. But I am starting to think some of her neurodivercity is a product of some external factors, like the shutdown of the world during the panademic. Unlike the kids who were going stir crazy from being home, my kid absolutely loved it! And so did I. I am a homebody extraordinaire! But when you have to emerge back into a society which is different and you like things to stay exactly the same, there can be some discord happening in the brain.
Lots of children are struggling right now, lots of adults are struggling right now too. Lets find a way to give people some grace. We live in a world were kindness and empathy are considered bad, where cruelty and hatred are the norm.
Lets find that kindness and empathy again and spread it like butter on hot bread.