'Outing': A Reflection On Why Its Scary

Hey all! I’m sorry I haven’t updated this blog in well over a year – it’s been a really challenging one, filled with ups and downs, and to be honest I’ve needed far more self care and centering time than I thought I would. I have been getting back into this blog and its associated Facebook page more and more though, and I hope you’ll all forgive me for my absence! I promise it was spent on good causes – like finally finishing the second draft of the book I’ve been working on based on both this site and my own life experiences as an Aspie! When I have more information for you about that development, I’ll be sure to pass it along!

With that long-winded and thoroughly Aspie-style apology out of the way, I’d actually like to talk today about something that’s been on my mind a lot lately – coming out. ‘But Adam,’ you might begin, ‘aren’t you already out? I mean, you’re a fierce defender of the neurodivergent in internet land and have met other fellow spectrum-dwelling activists in the process over your years of blogging!’ You wouldn’t be wrong for thinking this, and yet I’m sure I’m not the only one out there who is only ‘out’ in certain aspects of my life. Granted, my friends and family all know about my being an Aspie, and I’m not exactly shy about talking about it in public…but it’s always something I’ve kept out of things like my work life. It’s not that I necessarily think anyone would think less of me, or that I feel I’d be oppressed…its just something that I’ve always sensed shouldn’t be brought in to work. With the aforementioned progress I’ve made towards getting my book published however, I’ve recently had to face the very real fact that if and when it gets published, I’ll be outed in every aspect of my life – including work.

So why does being outed at work like this carry with it so much anxiety? To be honest, it’s a bit of a soup of reasons, but if I were to single out two of them, it would be ‘lack of agency’ and ‘engrained fear of ableism.’ Simply put – while I’ve always wanted to get a book published and I’ve never been shy to speak out about being on the spectrum in my adult life, there’s something simultaneously empowering and agency-depriving about a book being published and suddenly everyone knowing your story…including people you might not want to know. It seems silly to be concerned about this – after all, isn’t this the whole point of publishing something of this nature? Isn’t the ‘consenting moment’ the decision to pursue this, after which any and all outing is to be expected? Maybe, but there’s no denying that an act of supreme agency and self advocacy like this also carries with it the side effect of depriving one of their own agency in day-to-day dealings. Where once one could hide from ableist bigotry behind a perceived veil of neurotypicality, now it’s all out there. It’s like being emotionally naked to the world…and to borrow a term from the younger generation, that makes you feel vulnerable ‘AF.’

This brings me to the next reason this whole process has given me all of the nervousness – my engrained fear of ableism. As an older millennial (what some may call an ‘X-ennial’ because being born in 1988 officially places me closer to the Gen X-ers in mentality than to some of my more stereotypical younger millennial cohorts), I was raised during the 1990s, and for every awesome and rightfully nostalgic element that decade had going for it (Sega vs Nintendo! Pokemon! PlayStation 1, Star Trek and Terminator 2 and…I’ll stop…), it often wasn’t the most progressive and forward thinking when it came to various stigmas – specifically those related to mental health. There was always this undercurrent of not taking anything personal into the public eye and the workplace. Work is about work, or so the logic went, don’t give them any reason to look on you differently or they will find an excuse and fire you! Granted this was never STATED as such, but with the prevailing attitude towards mental health care at the time being ‘avoid the crazy farm at all costs,’ and witnessing first hand how the world treated my mentally ill mother, it wasn’t hard for me to internalize some of this and live in fear of being outed in certain contexts. In fact, this was precisely the reason it took me as long as it did to come to terms with my own place on the spectrum. It doesn’t matter that the world is far more accepting of mental health issues now than it’s ever been, or that I’ve been a part of that change through this blog…old habits and insecurities die hard, and for a time in high school I even didn’t want to be associated with the label ‘Aspergers.’ Coming to terms with this has been and will continue to be a journey, and to anyone reading this who has also experienced similar fears – I get it, and you are not alone. Society has imprinted fucked up attitudes on all of us to some degree, and it’s important we constantly challenge them – not only when we come across them in public, but also when we encounter them within ourselves.

Despite all of this fear and anxiety, however, I do remain committed to getting my book published and continuing this blog. It has the potential to do so much good for so many people, and isn’t it my responsibility as someone on the spectrum who is able to communicate to put my voice out there and advocate for both myself and those that can’t? Isn’t every non-cis-het-neurotypical perspective valuable in this day-and-age of opposing oppression wherever it rears its ugly head? The answer to each of these questions is a resounding ‘yes!’ I will always keep fighting for what I believe in, no matter the cost! After all, bravery isn’t defined by the absence of fear, but rather by the overcoming of it. So I may continue to shit bricks about certain aspects of this fight, but that doesn’t mean I won’t keep stepping forward into the fray.

After all, there’s a reason the Pottermore sorting hat placed me in Gryffindor… 😊

As always, yours in diversity,

Adam Michael

"Tool of Oppression": The DSM and the Pathologizing of Personality Types

Ahh the DSM. Anyone with even a passing familiarity with psychology is aware of its existence. To mental health professionals all over North America, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is the defacto bible by which they shape their careers. Within it is listed every condition discovered by psychological professions up to this point. To society, it is the gold standard by which all mental health conditions are categorized and understood. It is the lens by which most of us view the workings of our own minds, whether we realize it or not.

But is it the best way?

I've been thinking a lot about the DSM lately for many reasons (my book-in-progress and my self-discovery of also having ADHD-Inattentive, to name a few), and its led me to one inescapable conclusion; in some ways, the DSM is the worst enemy of anyone who challenges what I like to call the 'pathology paradigm' present in psychology. Simply put, the DSM is the tool by which, whether knowingly or not, mental health professionals perpetuate our culture of stigma and oppression towards those who are differently wired. The problem isn't even really with the DSM; as a field guide to the various ways in which human minds can be constructed, its very valuable as it has been thoroughly researched and can effectively give guidance on what kinds of problems someone with any of the conditions listed within may possibly face. The issues arise, however, when we start to treat the DSM as the unflinching word of the gods.

I read an interesting article recently on the topic of neurodiversity which argued that in order for any real change to happen in this area, those of us who are neurodivergent would have to stop using the “tools of our oppressors,” (disability first language, words like pathology and disorder, etc.). While I'm not strictly anti-psychiatry per se, the author had a valid point and it is encapsulated in the tendency of the DSM, and psychology in general, to pathologize the human mind and its various personality types. By its very nature, psychology seeks to categorize and classify the various states of the brain and identify 'disorders,' but who exactly decides what is a disorder and what is simply a divergent state of normal human wiring? Such classifications are all-too-often culturally biased and based almost entirely on what is deemed acceptable by the standards of the society in which they have been created. By accepting such a practice without even considering the socially constructed element of disability, are we not effectively filtering otherwise normal human personality types through an arbitrarily designed acceptability filter?

Don't get me wrong; I understand full well that there are certain conditions listed in the DSM which genuinely are concerning both for the safety of society and the individual themselves. In our search for more and more of those however, we must be careful to avoid pathologizing personality types. After all, if we as a species are naturally diverse physically, culturally and even spiritually, why not mentally? There is no one-size-fits-all human body, so why must the brain conform to such rigid standards of normalcy? We need to move away from the traditional medically-based understanding of psychology and towards one which blends what we have learned with an understanding of the wonderful diversity of human nature. One which respects the identity and agency of each and every human being and which doesn't simply reduce them to a diagnostic label on a testing document.

After all, I may be an Aspie, and I may have ADHD, but I am Adam first and foremost. These have shaped me and are a part of me, but at the end of the day I deserve far more than to be reduced to a simple pathology.

The same is true of every human on this planet, no matter the challenges we face.

As always yours in diversity,

Adam Michael

Oh, by the way, here's the link to the article I mentioned in this post. Definitely worth a read!:

http://un-boxedbrain.com.au/2016/02/oppressors-tools/