You Are More Than Your Labels

I want to talk today about being more than the labels we were given. Whether that's short, tall, thin, big, smart, stupid, white, black or brown, LGBTQ. Sorry if I forgot one of those letters in there. Neurotypical or neurodiverse. I don't want to minimize these labels if you think they are part of you. But I want to remind you that they aren't the totality of you. I hope that makes sense. Do you ever feel excluded because of the label you were given by a social construct? I mean construct or by doctors, therapists , professionals or politicians? I know for me it's often difficult to think of the qualities that I have that aren't related to the NLD or chronic migraine condition I have. I do know that I am more than these two labels though in my social life. I'm a podcaster minister's daughter and one of the project social ambassadors for The NVLD Project In the work world, I am an admin app, a tech social media assistant. and freelancer with custom tech services. 

In my personal life, I am a sister, daughter, mother to truffles. My dog and friends to many, but not many know that I am also a sexual abuse survivor, a marathon runner, skier, environmental ambassador. And I also don't mind taking risks and seeing what happens because I've gotten used to doing this over the past nine years of knowing about my neurodiversity and migraine condition. 

The first article I want to use for this episode is titled What is neurodiversity and why does it happen? Why does it matter? By McKenna Prinzing, written in September of 2022. “Neurodivergence is a term used to describe differences in brain function. Classical definitions of neurodivergence include diagnoses of autism, ADHD, and dyslexia. However, embracing neurodiversity means going beyond medical definitions by Recognizing the whole person. Neurodivergence is not the same as a disability or mental illness, but it can be associated with them. Accepting human neurodiversity is important. So all people can live their best lives. The thing is neurodiversity. Movement has brought into focus for me that even if someone is struggling with a challenge that they themselves would like to mitigate, such as an uncomfortable level of anxiety and difficulty focusing, that person should be valued and treated with respect as an autonomous person. Not just seen only through the lens of individual pathology, Estes explains. And the social model of disability should be given due weight so adjustments to the environment can be considered as well as asking the person to change.”

I definitely think it's bringing up a good point of recognizing what neurodivergence Is not just with the diagnosis, but with how that person or individual is going to be living with it and not just how the individual is going to be living with it, but how everybody is. else around them who has that knowledge that they're living with it. How they respond to and react to that because that can also impact the individual's life as well. And realizing that they have, they have a piece of themselves that in most cases is invisible and is hard for somebody else to see when it's neurodivergence. 

I don't know if that could be applied to some of the other labels out there. I don't want to really speak because I don't want to put words in somebody else's mouth for their label that I don't have or I don't really know. I can't say what it's like for them to have that or to experience it , so i'll just speak from what I can, in terms of being neurodivergent and chronic migraines and as a survivor of sexual abuse. I'm not bringing any of these things up to be triggers for somebody else. But, they are things for me that I will always have. And will always be a part of me to a certain extent of how much power they have behind them and how much I let them. I guess you could say, overtake my life in terms of letting it exhaust me or trigger me in some way. 

Whether it being NLD or the chronic migraines or the sexual abuse piece, they're all gonna have an effect on my life to some certain extent. And that extent is within my control. And sometimes it's not, because I believe that you can work hard to try to control the extent or power that something existential has on you only so much, and that sometimes you just gotta let it have an effect on you and breathe through it and work through it. 

And maybe that will be easier than trying to bottle up your emotions around whether it's NLD or a migraine or something triggering from. For you, for trauma that you had in the past to just live with it and, let it, let yourself experience it rather than trying to ball up your emotions around it because sometimes that's more effort than it's worth. That's connected to some of the labels that I want to bring up today. 

So, the second article is titled people are more than labels written by Alan Shellman in February of 2021. The solution, “is to follow two simple steps. First, resist the urge to jump to conclusions about people. Realize that people hold far more nuanced views than what their labels suggest. Don't assume you understand a person's, sorry, don't assume you understand a person because He's identified himself in some way. It's not that you can't conclude anything about a person, but it often means that you can learn a lot more about them. Second, take the time to learn and understand people. As we've often talked about here at Stand to Reason, Lieutenant Coleman is your friend. The Kuhlman tactic is about the art of asking questions in a gracious way. The more you learn about another person, the better you'll understand them, and you'll be less likely to misrepresent them. Plus, taking the time to learn about them also helps you respond in a more relevant way. Francis. Shaffer said, if I only have one, sorry, if I only have an hour with someone, I will spend the first 55 minutes asking questions and finding out what is troubling their heart and mind. And then the last five, I will share something of the truth. By taking the time to learn about their values, And they're alive. You'll be better equipped to know what to say when and if you decide to say something. When we settle for our understanding of others based on a mere label, we limit our capacity to understand one another and short circuit healthy relationships. That's one reason why the word divergent was better off once they eliminated factions. I think I might have read that sentence wrong. That's one reason why the world and Divergent was better off once they eliminated factions. People could be understood for the complicated beings they truly were. We can reap the same benefit in our world if we no longer settle for seeing people as a mere label. So, with that article, I think it was bringing up a book with the title being Divergent, and yeah, it was bringing up a series, which I've heard of before. It's basically saying, in a world divided by factions based on virtues, Treece learns she's Divergent and won't fit in when she discovers a plot to destroy Divergence. And the mysterious forum must find out probably what it is. So, for myself, I would say that, like I was saying earlier, you, I think labels are important to some extent in terms of that they help us realize the similarities or differences that we might have with somebody else. But they don't give us the totality of that person and a total understanding of what that person goes through, which is, I think, is what this article was trying to, reference is that, you need to be able to, learn more about people and learn what's behind their label than just accepting that they have that label and understanding, not just understanding what the definition of a label is to somebody who has defined it as whether that is a professional in that field or whatever title you want to give that person. Understand what the label means to the person who has it. Because I think that's more powerful and will help you, have a relationship with that person. The third article is titled, Neurodiversity is not enough, we should embrace it. Psycho diversity by Bonnie Evans, the socialist, Judy Singer coined the term neurodiversity in the late 1990s, inspired by other emancipatory social movements based on race and gender. Singer used her standing as an autistic person to rally together neurodivergent people. This was partly. A response to what Singer called the social constructivist view of autism, where the condition was seen as having no solid biological basis. This denied the reality of neurological difference, according to Singer. In reply, she offered up neurodiversity in the spirit of biodiversity, in that it's recognized and represents and respects natural variance among humans. Coming across all these descriptions and definitions in the 1990s, Singer was well placed to make her own claims of the development of her own identity. She didn't want to adopt former models of psychological development that pathologized mothers. And by nine psychological differences, yet also, yet she also didn't want to adopt the label of impaired the neurodiversity movement allowed for a new form of identity that was psychologically distinct, but didn't see its members as lacking in some way. There is a different way forward in which we fashion our political advocacy and scientific reasoning, not on the brain, but the mind. I call this program Psychidiversity. Psychidiversity rejects the claim that mental states can be cleanly and predictably mapped on the brain. And onto the brain instead, it augments the valuable work of neurodiversity by demonstrating that mental processes and the way we understand them change and evolve through history and indeed, psychodiversity holds. That the mind and human nature are not unitary things, but are profoundly embedded and even constituted by the society and context in which they appear. That isn't to deny the reality of difference, but rather to situate this reality as a reality. Part of an unfolding social and historical process close.”

 I want to try to close this episode by briefly describing to you what my labels mean. Because I feel like that might give you some insight to maybe what your labels mean to yourself. If you don't already know what they mean to you. I'm not going to go for all the labels that I have, because there's quite a few that I could think of, but I'll go over the major ones. I always knew that I’m a sister and a friend, a caring individual, who helps in any way that she can, no matter what effort it takes. I love being a sister and a friend to whomever steps into my life. Not only am I a sister  to my brother, Jonathan, but I feel like I'm a sister to some of the friends that I have. 

But I also know that, I can also just be. Just isn't the right word. I can also be a close friend to somebody without having to.... how do I want to phrase this? This. Without having to feel completely obligated to know everything about them because I don't have to know everything about them. I'm comfortable with knowing what they want from me. Knowing what they want to show and what, I think, is beneficial. But sometimes knowing everything about somebody isn't the best thing. And I mean by that, that sometimes, you may think, you know, everything about somebody that you've been living with your entire life. And then you realize that that's not true. And, I think that's happened to me a lot with my family in terms of realizing I thought I knew who somebody was and then them not responding in the way that I thought they would, around certain things that they realized that were, were, happening in the family. And with that, I'm referring to. The trauma that I experienced in my childhood. 

So, and then, with NLD, I think I'm still learning what that means to me, but for myself. I think I do feel like it means that, yes, I have challenges that others may or may not experience. And because I have those challenges and because my brain is built differently than neurotypicals, my experience of life is different than somebody else's. And that makes it more difficult for me to learn something that would be more simple for neurotypicals to learn. Like driving or how to manage a budget or how to cook a meal or how to go about a workday with being productive and getting things done and trying to not have it be stressful. I hope that shed some light on realizing that yes, we do have these labels that we are given by society, whether that's, from, an academic or professional stance or a social stance, but the labels don't make up completely who we are. It's only one part of us or a part of us. And, we are more than the labels because. Yes, they are a part of us, but we are the person who lives with them and who is, being there for others in the best way that they possibly can while also trying to go through their own, personal things in their lives.