"I Wish I Were Special"

I read this movie review of "Ratatouille" (a movie I have not seen) one day, which included a blurb about "The Incredibles," a movie I had seen:

"He [Bird, the director] communicates an idea that all people are not necessarily created equal in regards to the things they may naturally be good at (indeed, they may each be naturally good at different things). The Incredibles showed this by contrasting the superheroes' amazing and varying inborn abilities against those of its villain, Syndrome. He had no super powers but wanted to become a superhero; bitterness at not being able to accept not having powers leads him to become a villain."

I also read somewhere that day that it was typical in stories for special people to want to be normal, and normal people to want to be special.

Now, Syndrome may not have had superpowers, but he had a talent that, I would say, surpassed those of any superhero: he was a genius engineer, building machinery that mimicked superpowers since he was just a child. As a young adult, he'd managed, with funding from the government, to design a robo-monster so powerful that it could kill any individual superhero that dared challenge it...but, as the good guys must always win in those family films, not a whole team of them such as the Incredible family.

I've been a little bit like the young Syndrome when it came to my attitude toward autistics, especially the so-called "high functioning" ones (though my readings of neurodiversity sites and blogs indicate that functioning levels are an iffy concept, as the abilities of individual autistics shift and drift over time. My boyfriend has experienced some changes - generally towards the NT simulation direction, gaining some sociability and losing some intensity of focus, according to his own self-reports.) Autistic people often have incredible focus, sometimes to the point of savant skills, and an unusual and precise way of seeing the world. They also have the status of being "unique" in a socially recognized and substantial way. Since I'm already not the most charming and sociable person in the world anyway, and already have analytical tendencies, I've sometimes wished I were autistic, so I could gain the "superpowers" without losing all that much in the way of traditional non-autistic strengths 'cause I didn't have that much of them anyway. (Of course, I assumed then that non-autistic strengths were primarily in the social realm. Not until my recent long discussions about emotionally charged issues with my Aspie BF did I realize that there were other non-autistic strengths that I did have in reasonable quantities, and I'm thinking now that I would in fact like to keep them.) I've also lamented being "normal" in general, equating it to ordinary, redundant, and ultimately valueless. Even as a kid, I used to complain that I wished I were a genius.

Over time, my envy of autism has faded (although it was on and off for a while and could relapse for all I know), but every now and then I still wish I were special and lament my ordinariness.

But it goes to show how the proverbial grass is always greener when I hear my boyfriend talking about how he does things or would consider doing things because he wants to be "normal" and to "beat the Asperger's." Apparently he values the social acceptance of fitting in, and coming from a rather conservative religious background, he hasn't had the kind of exposure I've had to the glorification of uniqueness and difference and "being yourself." Or if he has had it, then it didn't hit him during that critical imprinting phase in his life (childhood and early adolescence). He often thinks of the world quite directly in terms of concepts, ideas, rules, and people he knew then, and modifies these templates as soon as he gets enough input to do so. This may be a version of the autistic tendency to memorize whole patterns in detail and use them as thought-elements. Anything or anyone that deviates strongly enough from these early patterns is "weird" or "unlike anything he's every seen before."

So it's just like in the stories: the normal person wants to be special and the special person wants to be normal.

So what's the point of normal people - those of us who are close enough to the averages and stereotypes that we can hide under them with relatively little effort?

I don't know. But just because I don't know, doesn't mean that normal people are redunant or worthless. I'm reminded of my little epiphany when I read something - linked from ballastexistenz at the time, I think, though I can no longer find the link there - written by a Down Syndrome self-advocate. She wrote something clear, sentient, and meaningful. I would not judge this person to be worthless or a lesser being. Yet, if anyone is likely to be judged as a lesser being by peole in general, it's someone like her: a "retarded person," physically and cognitively different, or at least you'd probably be able to tell as much in person. So if it would be clearly mistaken to dismiss as a lesser being the "kind" of person who is "normally" dismissed as a lesser being, isn't it also mistaken to dismiss myself as such? How do I know I'm redundant, or valueless? Maybe I haven't come into my own yet. Maybe the concept of value itself is suspect. In any case, if I really want to honor basic human dignity, I'm going to have to honor myself, not reserve for myself - and especially not for "people like me," as they've done nothing to deserve it - some distinguished class of unworthiness.

I wonder what Syndrome could have been like if he'd accepted himself as he was, and actually worked together with or peacefully coexisted with superheroes rather than envying them and wanting to destroy them and take over their niche and outdo them. Could he have used his engineering skills to solve the energy crisis? To build specialized armor for superheroes faced with especially tough villains?

Popular Conceptions of "Mental Disorder" Impair NT Development

It isn't just the "neurodiverse" who are being held back by the view that they all have "diseases" that must be "cured" in order for them to live fulfilling lives.

The shrinking of the category of "normal" to an increasingly unattainable ideal is bad for the development of the full strengths of neurotypicals, too.

Compared to autistics, neurotypicals are supposed to be good at seeing "big pictures," changing their routines and habits, and imagining and working with the minds of other people. And although I don't believe autistics are necessarily as weak in these areas as they're made out to be, and especially not for the reasons they're made out to be ("they're just born that way" rather than "they just see the world differently and nobody realizes what to do about it"), I think that NT cognitive styles really do have potential for a certain flexibility that can be put to many great uses. The adaptability of modern humans to ever-changing environmental conditions and social situations is thought to have been essential to their evolutionary success, and the majority of modern humans, pretty much by definition (though given the way definitons are going, this might change), are neurotypical. Oftentimes if something in nature ends up common, it's because it "works."

But current concepts of "mental disorder" shrink down "normalcy" to a pinpoint and lead to the expectation that someone or another will "treat" or "cure" everyone who isn't "normal." This encourages us normal people to be lazy, thinking, "Oh, we don't need to change, THEY do. THEY have the problem." As a result, we don't change, and our cognitive flexibility that we could be using to work on reaching a mutual understanding with the neurodiverse people next door goes unused. We are not encouraged to stretch our imaginations to peer into very different minds, because those minds don't need to be so different.

And so we become just as inflexible and unempathetic as we claim autsitics are.

And it's not because we're just wired to be that way. Yes, part of our nature does include the capacity to dim or shut off empathy if fierce competition with another human or group of humans becomes necessary or exceptionally advantageous for survival. But another part of our nature, probably just as powerful, allows for the overriding of the nasty side when there is much more of an advantage to cooperation.

A lot of talent, spirit, and even life can be lost if that overriding capacity is underdeveloped. Do we really need all those wars, and all that schoolyard bullying? Would relationships be as strained and short-lived if people were encouraged to try to understand people who think radically differently from themselves?

We NTs don't even all think the same way as one another. We miscommunicate all the time. We fail to see the other's perspective. And that's supposed to be our strength. Focusing on the weaknesses of those who think differently from us, labeling them as disordered and inherently at fault for all their problems and expecting them to be cured, plays against that strength, and instead fortifies costly ego defenses that amplify our weakness of tending to pay too little attention to the hard and relevant facts of reality. How can we see the gorilla in the basketball court when we're too busy trying actively NOT to see things that threaten our ever-so-fragile egos? It's a lose-lose situation. The strengths of all are underdeveloped, and the weaknesses of all are amplified.