i know i usually try to keep things here lighthearted. but i can be serious for a moment real quick
it feels like most abled people only ever see neurodivergent people either as a tragedy, or a joke. except, we all know about being treated as a tragedy. plenty of people discuss that. but it feels like we rarely talk about how on a large scale, neurodivergent people have always been treated as a joke.
growing up, it was "autistic screeching REEEEEE" and the r-slur and "what are you, some sorta psycho" and "i'm so ocd/adhd" and mocking autistic people's stims. and just the entire existence of autism at all as being something inherently ridiculous and to be mocked and joked about. and almost EVERYONE online did it. when i was a kid, i couldn't look up my own conditions without seeing nothing but either people treating it like it was the worst, most horrible thing on earth, or people treating it like people who had it were ultimately one big joke. the only place you EVER saw positivity was in the sparse few communities made for and by people with the conditions.
but back then, the neurodivergent movement was underground. nobody really knew about it if you weren't actually neurodivergent yourself and involved in a few small close-knit communities. but then in the past few years, that's started to change. i think it was around 2020-ish that i started noticing people started to, well, notice us. while we're still far off from everyone in general being aware of our existence, we've slowly started to become mainstream. now canonically autistic characters are starting to appear in media, and people actually noticed when sia released her god-awful movie and criticized it.
but even so, neurodivergency never stopped being treated as a joke. some people realized that their previous jokes were harmful, and it seemed like we were finally making progress. but as a side-effect of neurodivergency becoming more well-known in the public eye, things started to change, and not necessarily for the better. suddenly, the concept of "neurodivergency" itself became a joke.
and now it feels like the label that was so important to the community, which we were so proud of, which felt so liberating, is a joke again. you can't say "neurodivergent" without people saying you're making up oppression for attention, and saying you're overreacting, and saying that godawful "neurodivergent and a minor" phrase. and i understand that some of it is because of people having tryied to excuse shitty behavior off of their mental disabilities/illnesses. and yeah that's awful, and neurodivergency should never be an excuse for bad behavior. but now people are turning one of our biggest points of pride, which we worked so hard on, into something to be ashamed of. not to mention shit like "delulu" and "restarted" and "narcissist" and "acoustic' and "i am in your walls".
and the recent trend that ableism is made up or being overexaggerated, which i've been seeing online recently, just makes my blood boil. i can't go outside without being stared at or treated like a child or mocked. we don't have the basic human rights to immigrate or marry or get a job, and many of us don't have any autonomy at all. countless of us die every day because nobody cares enough about us or believes us. hate crimes and police violence against the mentally disabled and mentally ill is still a huge thing. and it is still legal to physically and psychologically and emotionally abuse us, and in many places kill us. but people act like we're all making this up for attention. it's a type of discrimination and oppression so that is so sheerly widespread and all-consuming, but yet it's so invisible.
i mean of course people have never believed us about our experiences and the sheer amount of ableism we face. that's not new. but i guess just what makes it hurt so worse now is that people now realize the neurodivergent community exist, and people who we used to think are allies are turning against us and mocking us. someone makes fun of neurodivergent people, you try to say "hey don't do that", and now everyone is dogpiling you and saying you're "pissing on the poor" and "proving their point." we can't criticize albeism from others online now without being told we're overreacting and making a big deal out of nothing. and i see people who i thought were allies reblogging and laughing about this kinda stuff. and it just really feels like it's hard to trust abled people. it feels like every time i think i can trust a neurotypical person, they turn on us. and sometimes i just feel like cutting off any neurotypical people altogether, even though i know realistically there are some good allies out there. it just feels like there are so few
idk just feels bad man. we really can't catch a break can we