The Future is Neurodivergent | Jennifer Poyntz | TEDxAungierSt

foreign I've thought a lot about what it might be like to stand here in front of you today terrifying definitely empowering maybe I'm not there yet but I might be there by the end yet I've spent my career so far as a PhD researcher writer disability Advocate telling people that the presence of vulnerability doesn't mean there's an absence of Courage so in the interest of taking my own advice I'm going to begin by telling you a story one of my own most visceral memories of vulnerability I was underwater and there were six bodies holding on to me hands grabbed my throat my arms bruising me the water was pushing down and my lungs were burning I couldn't breathe it felt like the very density of the water would cave my skull in and I was the only person that could swim so our survival depended fully on me and I was thinking pretty fast earlier that summer I'd arrived in Tanzania with little to no regard for myself I went through life like everyone else I went through the motions breathing in breathing out keeping moving forward but all the time I had this fear this deep understanding and belief within myself that I never spoke about that there was something inherently wrong with who I was that how I moved through the world was different to other people and it wasn't right it was this difference that I thought of when I was underwater it held me down like an anchor and it was almost enticing almost like a Sirens call and I had another thought wouldn't it be easier to just give up to set down this heavy existence to feel lighter for one moment yet I answered this call by pushing forward giving a great push with my legs somehow we all landed on the shore of Lake Malawi and I looked around and I realized we'd survived but also in that moment a fundamental truth had been revealed to me I wanted to live and I wanted to live well it'll be another four years before I'd understand the source of this difference that have followed me quite doggedly throughout my life because at the age of 26 I learned that I'm autistic I'm going to share my journey of self-acceptance with you today it's a path I'm still on but I've learned some valuable lessons along the way and I'd like to share three of them the first is the simple power of a single kindness at the age of 19 I moved to Galway to study creative writing storytelling and writing is probably my one true love so I loved it but I also was overwhelmed there was so much new new classes new friends new bed new city new expectations before long I found myself sitting in front of the doctor in the student health unit feeling so panicked I remember how he fiddled with his feather pattern tie and he asked me why I come in I had rehearsed this answer but in that moment I blurted out something that felt so true I said I think I'm the wrong flavor person for this world I think that might have been my first real experience of drowning the doctor took this as a surface level experience of anxiety and he wasn't wrong and I agreed I was anxious there was no doubt but deep down I knew this wasn't the full story I knew there was something different about the lens at which I viewed the world about how I experienced overwhelm here might be an important point to stop and explain the difference between how I experience overwhelm as an autistic person and how other people might experience overwhelm I and other neurodivergent individuals experience heightened emotions if you haven't heard the word neurodivergent before it comes from the word neurodiversity which simply refers to the Natural variants that occurs in human brains like no two brains are the same just like biodiversity in nature a lot of different conditions fall under the umbrella of neurodiversity ADHD dyslexia dyscalculcia Tourette syndrome and autism there's more though and so all of us experience overwhelm a little differently for me it doesn't really feel like I just simply have too much on my plate instead it feels like my every sense is heightened I can see everything in my news horrifying detail that I can't turn off I can't compartmentalize my senses smells taste touch everything crosses inward like a pressure cooker building building building it's an overwhelming experience and the problem with living in a world that isn't fundamentally built for you is that there's rarely a point in your life when you're not overwhelmed I and many people around you are living in a constant state of extremes somehow though I made it through my first year of college I worked through a checklist of young adulthood but by the time summer arrived I collapsed I cocooned inward unwilling to leave the house exhausted my life changing kindness came on a day like any other that summer a day that began with absolute apathy I was going to visit my aunt's house because some of my cousins were home from England this is going to be hard I knew it was going to be hard I was going to have to be kind polite the definitively happy person I didn't know it at the time but I Was preparing myself to mask ing is something that neurodivergent people tend to do where we suppress behaviors that settles apart you might be thinking that everyone masks to a degree that is true but neurodivergent people it's slightly different because it involves suppressing the very essence of who you are everything that makes you you all of your individuality is suppressed subconsciously or rather consciously telling you that it is wrong that how you are inherently is not right what I didn't account for that day however was the sheer exhaustion of feeling nothing by the time the introductions were over I was sitting at the kitchen table with everyone else like a ragdoll I was burnt out I'd run out of steam I was a prop amongst the chatter until I heard my aunt tell my cousin that I was studying creative writing writing is perhaps the only thing that would make it through to me in that moment I looked up at him as if through a fog and I smiled Victor is my cousin he is freckles like me he's profoundly generous there's two generations between us but that day Victor looked at me as if he saw the heaviness in me for what it was exhaustion at a lifetime spent coping Victor reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper and he quickly scribbled something on it before handing it to me creative Science Foundation it said Victor explained to me that the creative Science Foundation is a non-profit organization where scientists technology experts biologists artists painters Writers come together everyone from different disciplines and works on building prototypes of technology that can help our future it's a place Victor explained where they believe we are made Stronger by our differences not divided by them something I think that was in hibernation within me for a long time not just awake at that shoot me an email Victor said I didn't realize it at the time but what Victor was doing was erring on the side of kindness he saw the vulnerability in me and instead of Turning Away he pulled off a seat for me at the table and more than that he was offering to hand me the mic and now I stand here in front of you made whole in the complete knowledge of who I am Victor's kindness set me on a path to learn the second lesson I want to share with you today which is the importance of prioritizing empathy over conformity at my first ever academic conference I was given an opportunity to run a workshop it was going to be a workshop on different tips for writing short stories and I was so nervous I felt sick I almost didn't want to do it something about this constellation of people so eclectic so different coming together felt so right that I pushed through and it felt amazing until about halfway through when a young man in the front row raised his hand I'll always remember him because the way he frowned made his forehead look like it had plow lines foreign I just refer him to speak up even though my stomach was in knots it was as if this was the moment I was going to be found out discovered for being a fraud I'm going to be honest with you he said his voice was a little bit unsure I'm not sure many people think like you do that was all he said I'm not sure many people think like you do my Palms grew so sweaty I was holding a clicker and my presentation behind me was frozen on a slide where I thought I was carefully outlining ways to write short stories in a way that anyone could do it it was as if a lifetime of self-doubt was knocking on my temples until I decided to be vulnerable and I looked into his eyes and I saw something familiar there his own doubt and I realized he wasn't judging me or my ability or my brain he was doubting his ability to conform to my behavior to my way of thinking the resulting conversation about what it is to be different was profoundly interesting and informs my PhD research to this day the numbers of neurodivergent individuals have nearly tripled since the year 2000. it's estimated that between 30 and 40 percent of our society is neurodiverse in some way so we make up Society but we don't shape it we experience unprecedented rates of unemployment depression and suicide it's my belief there are misunderstandings about these conditions in my case autism contributes to this in short our preconceptions are failing us recently A friend of several years told me that they didn't like what my autism diagnosis had done to me I was louder now I took up more space and that made them uncomfortable in their mind it was the label that had changed me because after all I suppose I've always been autistic whether I knew it or not and they're right I am changed but I'm also freed and this is our third lesson by viewing somebody else's identity as a problematic label to be solved or deficit we do our society a tremendous disservice in the short two years since my own diagnosis I've come to learn what it is to fully accept someone's identity without suspicions without agenda without ideas in my mind about who they could be if they tried hard enough at my second academic conference I got to do something different again I got to run a seminar it was for educators lecturers teaching assistants anyone who's interested in writing and teaching writing and the Crux of my talk was going to be about constructing unconventional characters sometimes unlikable characters I began by asking the room what it is that makes a character unlikable and in some cases people unlikable I was met with such silence silence that follows me today and I realized I was going to have to get the ball rolling by being vulnerable so I started listing words loser loner freak cold sensitive intense too much not enough these are words that have followed me my entire life sometimes whispered reaching me almost on the wind in a way that I was never meant to hear them sometimes that exactly to my face unavoidably but it did get the room talking and we realized through discussion that what makes a character unlikable and maybe a person at its core is someone who behaves differently than an apparent Norm by vehemently denying somebody's label we only make room for other labels ones that we have no control over and I speak from experience when I say that is these words that have left an indelible painful mark on me and not my autistic identity I'd like to finish today by being vulnerable with you one last time I stand before you today proud of who I am made whole really but when I was first diagnosed I didn't feel proud I felt devastated it was as if this Chasm opened up inside of me that was howling with wind that moved with my every heartbeat different different different but I didn't feel devastated because I was autistic I felt devastated for the 26 years I'd lost her isolation loneliness feeling different telling myself I was wrong who I was is wrong my experience isn't unique I know this from the hundreds of autistic adults I work with we grieve for the times we clipped our own Wings cut Corners off of ourselves hoping that if we just tried hard enough we'd finally be accepted into the fold for too long we've been building a society that tolerates differences rather than celebrates uniqueness to be different is to be vulnerable and to be vulnerable is to be gloriously alive and I'm so glad I'm different it is my true hope that one day our children can look at each other and themselves and realize that they are exactly who they need to be from the very beginning I'll leave you with a final request if you are ever fortunate enough to get the opportunity to give someone a leg up invite the entirety of who they are to the table because you never know they might someday stand in front of a room like this because of a piece of paper passed over a kitchen table 10 years ago may you live and Live Well thank you [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 1,547

Keywords: Acceptance, Behavior, Biodiversity, Complexity, Diversity, English, Health, Neuroscience, TEDxTalks, [TEDxEID:52405]

Id: WVoBM2424vc

Length: 16min 5sec (965 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 08 2023