Pathologization: The scariest Halloween monster

 I think Halloween should be for all ages, and it's great when older kids, teens, and adults dress up or get into the spirit. No one likes the fun-hating curmudgeon who complains about "Those kids are too old for this and get off my lawn." That guy is just asking to get his house TP'ed.

However, "mental age" is an oppressive, bigoted, and unscientific concept. All year round, including on Halloween. If your defense of teen trick-or-treaters in any way involves "They might have a younger MENTAL AGE," you're doing it wrong.

You don't need a reason

It's okay to choose to take medication.

It's also okay to choose not to take medication.

For any reason.

It's okay to choose not to take meds because you don't like the side effects

or because you can't afford them

or because you're concerned about long-term effects

or because you have an alternate philosophical or spiritual perspective to your condition

or because you don't trust the judgment of doctor who prescribed them

or because you don't want anything interfering with your body or brain functioning

or because you prefer "natural" approaches like food or supplements

or because you don't like swallowing pills

or literally any other possible or hypothetical reason.

There is no such thing as an invalid or illegitimate reason to choose not to take medication. It's your body and your choice.

(If you think this post is "shaming" of people who do choose to take medication, scroll back up to the very first sentence. Both choices are valid, but right now, this post is about people who choose not to take medication.)

This is a boundary

Friendly reminder that if your "Boundaries" include "Don't call out my ableism (or other bigotry)" your "boundary" is not valid and does not deserve to be respected.

Stop dogpiling people for "violating boundaries" by calling out your ableism. Better yet, stop being ableist.

The late capitalism life stage

"Life stage" is rarely a useful concept. The only really valid, useful use of "life stages" is in the context of assessing children for medical or nutritional problems that can sometimes result in below-average growth/development. Children who aren't sick or injured, and are well-fed, should be allowed to grow and learn and develop at their own pace. The things that are called "life stages" for adults are actually just cultural or socioeconomic markers. You're not immature for using AAC instead of speech or for renting instead of buying your home.

Reasoning of circularity

A thing pathologizers often say, in response to mad pride and neurodiversity advocates who question pathologization, is "But it's only called a disorder if it causes functional impairment! We're not pathologizing harmless traits, only things that cause distress or functional impairment!"

Which would be fine (no, it wouldn't, but that can be a separate discussion), except that THEY define "functional impairment." They also define "distress."

Essentially their argument is "We don't pathologize people arbitrarily, we only pathologize people who don't live up to the standards that we ourselves created."

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Parallels, parallels

Thing that bothers me: Religious leaders in theocratically-dominated societies defending oppressive things they do or advocate (e.g. forced marriage, child marriage, marriage coerced by economic necessity, child-stealing via adoption, virginity testing, male guardianship...) as well-intentioned solutions to problems -- THAT THEIR OWN INSTITUTIONS HAVE CREATED.

Oh, you claim it's "for the best" to imprison pregnant women and steal and sell their children? Because a single mother can't support herself and would otherwise be living on the street? Well, gee, WHY IS THAT? Who decreed that single mothers should be so stigmatized and so excluded from social participation that they and their children can ever escape persecution? Yes, that's right, you guys!

You have to marry an unwilling woman for her own good, because she has no money? Why is that? Who made the rule that women can only have money by way of men? Yes, you guys again!

Although it's not just religious leaders; we see the same argument that psychiatric institutionalization is defensible because otherwise, psychiatrically disabled people would be homeless and starving. The argument is still "They should be oppressed because other people oppress them."

Complete social marginalization does not happen by accident. It takes quite a bit of structure to support it. When you successfully marginalize an entire demographic and ensure that they have no access to any form of meaningful participation in society, it becomes easy to justify holding them captive as "protecting" or "rescuing" from their inevitable fate of total deprivation of social and economic participation.

Brain Memes

 A thing that intrigues me is the way that neurodiversity issues intersect with meme culture. There is an entire world of memes popular among Millennials and the generation younger than Millennials that I refuse to call "Homelanders" (I'm trying to make "Lawn Trespassers" happen) that normalize neurodivergent and pathologized traits, at the same time there is a significant overlap with memes that reinforce the medical model, often while appropriating neurodiversity-paradigm language (e.g. "Neurotypical people don't understand the struggle of being Mentally Ill").

"Introvert memes" are having a moment in my circles. Funny, relatable, affirming messages about how it's okay to be an introvert! We hate parties! Our idea of a good time is a quiet night in! We'd rather be chased by wild hyenas than talk on the phone!

Meanwhile, memes about "isolating" are shared by the same sources. "Isolating" is the pathologizing way of framing introversion. It's a "symptom."

So in this context, the memeified acceptance of "introversion" is neurotypical privilege. It's okay to isolate yourself from social interaction, by choice, because you prefer it.... as long as you're otherwise neurotyipcal. But in a neurodivergent person, this becomes a "symptom" of "isolating."

The same is true of memes celebrating, normalizing, or affirming "social awkwardness" (but not autism or other neurodivergence), "short attention spans" (but not ADHD), "math is hard LOL" (but not learning disabilities), "annoying trollbrain inner voices" (but not pathologized voice-hearing or schizophrenia).... neurodivergent traits are cute and quirky and memeable, but only when neurotypical people exhibit them.

I feel like this is going to be very easily misunderstood, so I want to explicitly spell out that my criticism is NOT of "Romanticizing Mental Illnesses, which are actually tragic Diseases!" (I don't believe that's a real thing... at any level). My criticism is of decoupling pathologized traits from the pathologized identities most associated with them and promoting acceptance of those traits only when exhibited by otherwise-privileged people, even when that means drawing arbitrary linguistic distinctions, like between "introversion" and "isolating." It's fine to be an introvert, struggle with math, have inner voices, stim, have special interests, or have a short attention span. But instead of defending these as memeified identities separate from pathologized identities, recognize the arbitrary and oppressive nature of pathologization, and recognize your own privilege that you CAN say things like "I hide when the phone rings!" or "My troll brain won't shut up!" or "I suck at word problems!" without anyone using this as an argument to deny your humanity or your civil rights.

What would you do without us?

A thought exercise for neurotypical people...

Imagine all neurodivergent people... are no more. Imagine we're "cured," or genetically screened out, or murdered, or transported en masse to a moon colony... the specific methods don't matter, and frankly, I know most of you don't much care how you get rid of us anyway. What words would you use to describe people and things you hate? People would still make decisions you think are terrible. What would you call them?

The opposite of your end of the political spectrum (or is it more of a political mobius strip?) would still exist. How would you criticize them? Every social problem including violence, war, poverty, bigotry, racism, pollution, infectious diseases, and abuse would exist. What language would you use to try to identify and solve them? Admit it... you need us. To be your scapegoat, your metaphor, your go-to insult, your explanation for why the world isn't the way it should be. If we didn't exist, you'd have to invent us.