Name: A neurodivergent vignette
Faculty: Faculty of Medicine and Health
Course: Bachelor of Applied Science (Occupational Therapy)
Theme: COVID and/or Challenges
A new day is ushered in as my cat claims her position on my chest, her silky body pressing down on my chest. Not long after, the pressure is joined by anxiety for a new day. How many things I need to do, how many things won’t get done! I carefully push the tips of my fingers underneath my cat, recruiting the muscles of my forearm and with uncertain strength I lift her. I drag myself to my well-worn desk chair, with two minutes to spare, for another day of staring at my peers in little square boxes on my laptop.
My brain flickers on at 9:30, and tension gathers at my temples and my shoulders rise towards my ears, my separate attempts to focus feel like a punch to the soft tissue of the brain. I type away at my computer, a perfect, functioning human. From outside my window, I imagine myself a caricature, perfectly fulfilling my role alongside the adjacent apartments that stretch on, inhabited by many fraught with restlessness, as they work from home for another day. I struggled to understand the restlessness experienced by people on a mass scale during the pandemic. As the world withdrew, a feeling of satisfaction crept in. For those who are overwhelmed by the world, the subdued quiet of lockdown was a welcomed friend, encouraged in with gusto and given a seat at the head of the table.
I learnt shame very young. I learnt it through perpetual lateness at Saturday sport. My propensity to speak, feel and move my way through solutions, as opposed to completing my endless worksheets. My teacher sitting down, explaining long division to me, over and over, as though he would transplant the information into my head, not once changing the way he presented the information. Perpetually forgetting my hat during recess and lunch, I was sent to the time out area, as I watched the hand ball game continue without me. I sat on the sidelines, angry that the teacher did not recognise my argument, that she too, was not in fact wearing a hat. As I got older, I spent long afternoons in sickbay as I tried to avoid stuffy, noisy classrooms, where knees brushed against yours and the starchy uniform collar scratched against the back of my neck and noises from the outside world wafted in through the windows, low enough to let light in, too high to see through. For those who move through the world always feeling out of step, bowing out entirely is bound to come, sooner or later.
My affinity for the known and comfortable sequesters me to the world of the safe, the predictable. This was facilitated by months at home. Until this point, I did not know much I crave quiet, unpeopled places. No one to perform for, no one talking at me as their words hit my ears and get lost on the way from my ear canal to my brain. The expectant look people have. The lack of information I have. “I was listening, I promise,” I say. The searing burn of a question unanswered or a joke unacknowledged. The changing sensory input creating the endless cycle of reabsorbing the world, over and over again. When one experiences the neurodivergent world, one may notice it in others. I see young gaggles of girl, and locate one who is straining to process her friends lighting fast recount of a story, over the hiss of a nearby coffee machine and the mechanical thumps as the grains are hit out of the strainer. I know the world that girl lives in, because I live there too.
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