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Mar 29 2024
Destinations and maps: A reimagining of neurofuturism

Concepts around neurofuturism have so far been dominated by ideas around using AI and computer technology to enhance the human brain. I feel, however, that the neurodiversity movement is in a unique space to reclaim this term, using it to advance  the neurodiversity movement and consider the world we are working towards.

What is neurofuturism?

To my mind, the following is the truth of the matter. Neurofuturism is a radical imagining of a world in which the neurodiversity movement has succeeded. Neurofuturism allows us to picture the destination so as to make it easier to map the route there.

As part of this, we also have to consider what we will do when we arrive at our destination. Do we allow the dust to settle? Should we hang up our armour and sheath our swords? Do we settle in the space we have created? The concept invites us to consider not just our current fight for equitable treatment but also what the next part of our saga might look like.

Building on Self-advocacy and the Chaotic Self

There are two core principles that form the foundations of neurofuturism.

  • In the same way that self-advocates can guide newcomers through experiences they have had themselves because they have reached a destination in their life; so too can we advance the neurodiversity movement towards it’s goal by radically imagining what that goal may look like.
  • The nature of the Self is one of chaos. It changes over time with each interaction with its environment. The neurodiversity movement can also be viewed as a Chaotic Self or a constantly growing and evolving organism. The destination we imagine will change and evolve with us as we work towards it.

Further thoughts on the principles of neurofuturism

As the organism of the neurodiversity movement grows and evolves, so too must our goals. As goals shift and change, we must adjust the route we take. Neurofuturism rejects a hierarchical approach to the knowledge and aims of the neurodiversity movement, and instead embraces a neuroanarchistic approach of forward motion outside of identity politics.

The nature of the neurodiversity movement is perpetual motion under these principles. Stagnation is the death of liberty. Rather than solely bring newcomers into our fold, we must leap towards a future of infinite possibility, restricted only by what we can imagine that future to be.

Concluding thoughts

Neurofuturism is by it’s nature not a pursuit of isolation. It requires the understanding and balancing of all goals, all needs, and an uncoupling from dogmatic approaches to advocacy. It asks us the question “what if..?” While also helping us to define “how?”

We are able to explore the shifting goal of our future by building on the knowledge that has come before whilst retaining a critical mind. Neurofuturism is the reparenting of a movement with the goal of birthing a paradigm shift.

Footnote

Neuroanarchy as a concept was created by Katie Minday, their original definition can be found by clicking here.

David Gray-Hammond 0 Comments
Jan 30 2024
Diagnosed & Dumped: The lack of post-diagnostic support for autism

When we consider the journey to getting an autism diagnosis, we can be forgiven for feeling a little overwhelmed. From start to finish the process can take many years, many disappointments, and enough paperwork to make it feel like you have fallen into a bureaucratic block hole. Some find the process so daunting that they don’t even try. This probably accounts for some of the estimated 1.2 million undiagnosed Autistic people in the UK.

However, if you manage to overcome the wait list, the paperwork, the delving into your childhood. If you manage to justify your own existence according to the outdated and restrictive diagnostic criteria, you may well now be diagnosed with autism.

So what comes after my autism assessment?

In short, not much. Very little is actually done after you receive an autism diagnosis. I refer to this as the “diagnose & dump” model. In particular, I am thinking about the over-reliance on third sector organisations and lack of statutory post-diagnostic provision.

The National Health Service (NHS) website has a page titled “Where to get autism support“. It gives the following places where support is available.

  • Friends an Family
    • This assumes that we have had equal social opportunities to others, and that we have a good and supportive relationship with our family.
  • National Charities
    • National charities rarely offer the bespoke, one-to-one support required after a diagnosis
  • Local support groups
    • Again, this assumes your area has them, and that they are a positive environment from which to learn about yourself.
  • Social media and forums
    • I will say that this was the pnly place I found meaningful support post-diagnosis.

The hypocrisy of relying on the internet to do the job

Diagnostic services for autism are predicated on the medicalisation of Autistic people. They are firmly built within the pathology. It seems then that we could consider it hypocritical to rely on third-sector organisations and social media to support us.

Given that medical establishments have spent decades pathologising us, it seems very strange to have post-diagnostic support be completely reliant on services outside of the healthcare profession. Even if post-diagnostic support only helped with common health complications in Autistic populations without affecting Autistic struggles, it would be something.

Alas, there is no support. Even the aforementioned web page does not tell you how to find other Autistic people on social media.

Where can I find support following an autism diagnosis?

Autistic people are all over the internet, the challenge is finding your particular part of our rhizomatic community. I have a discord server full of Autistic people, there are Facebook groups, X/Twitter communities, we’re even in the fediverse.

What stands out to me is that if social media is going to be recommended as post-diagnostic support, we need to actually make it known how to find us. The journey from diagnosis to self-actualisation and acceptance is long and scary. We shouldn’t have to go it alone.

David’s new book is available now!

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David Gray-Hammond 0 Comments
Nov 6 2023
AuDHD and the politics of neurodivergent embodiment

When living life as an AuDHD (Autistic and ADHD) person, we often find ourselves falling prey to the propaganda of Western society’s neoliberalism. The enforced belief that one should be self-reliant and contribute to the capitalist machine is one that leads to the victimisation of most, if not all, of us. It’s easy to get caught in tackling the surface level ableism. However, we must dig deeper and fight the roots of our oppression in order to begin building a society we can thrive in.

The politicised existence of AuDHD people

When considering the nature of being AuDHD and/or otherwise neurodivergent, it is necessary to consider that we are not allowed to simply exist. As a marginalised community, most every aspect of our lives is a political matter.

Government welfare schemes decide if you can afford to feed yourself and your family, government health departments decide if you should have equal access to lifesaving treatments, and if so, how much you should pay. If you break the law, the government dictates your experience of the criminal justice system. If you are terminally ill, the government dictates the decisions you can make around the end of your life. When you are AuDHD, much of your autonomy in life is shaped by government legislation.

The weaponisation of our politicised existence

While your life is being dictated by those with no experience of it, we have the proverbial carrot dangled in front of us. Assimilate and be free. To some this might seem like an attractive option. If we were to just give in, less of our life would be dictated. Again, this is a mistruth.

The politics of the pathology paradigm are built upon neuronormativity. That unattainable summit of neurotypical performance that those in power ask us to achieve. Through the political control and oppression of neurodivergent embodiment, we are given the choice to deny ourselves; live inauthentically and be provided for, or be true to ourselves and relinquish our agency over our own lives.

To be neurodivergent in Western society is to accept that you are an afterthought, an anomaly to be corrected. As much as we threaten the status quo, the status quo threatens us. Thus, the spectre of legislative intrusion into our lives becomes a weapon to force us into the neurotypical box.

The paradoxical nature of being AuDHD

Politicised attitudes towards autism and ADHD are paradoxical in nature. The Autistic person should be less rigid and structured, while the ADHD person should stick to a routine. The Autistic person should socialise more naturally while the ADHD person should talk less.

No matter the contradictions we live with as AuDHD people, one thing is clear. Society wants us to silence our neurodivergence. To speak neurodivergently, be it with mouth or body, spoken or written, no matter the medium, society wishes for our silence.

Liberating AuDHD embodiment

One could be forgiven for thinking that to liberate AuDHD and neurodivergent people requires the removal of ableism from government. It’s more complex than that. Neurodivergent people are victims of complex systems of bigotry. Rarely are we only impacted by ableism. We face racism, homophobia and transphobia, ableism, sanism. This is not an exhaustive list.

To liberate AuDHD’ers living in a society built on colonialism and white supremacy, we must form new foundations to our society. We must build a place where all are accepted, rather than the privileged few in our culture whose existence is not seen as a disorder. We must embrace those seen as a pathology of humanity and empower each other to make something better than what we have currently.

It is not a disorder to be human. The world deserves better than that which the privileged few offer us.

David Gray-Hammond 0 Comments
Oct 29 2023
The reason why explaining my neurodivergent experience will always be flawed

I have spoken widely about neurodivergent experiences. I have talked about my unique experience of addiction as an Autistic person, my psychosis as an AuDHD Schizophrenic. I have lamented over how society’s power structures have oppressed myself and people like me. I have spoken at length about how autism is a defining part of my core experience of reality.

One might think that on all of my years of writing, advocating, mentoring, training, and speaking, I have found somewhat of a recipe for communicating neurodivergent experiences. The truth of communicating those experiences, however, is more complex than that.

The Double Empathy Problem in Reverse

The double empathy problem has been effectively used to explain that communication differences between neurodivergent and neurotypical people essentially lay in a difference of cultural experience. We often think of this in terms of neurotypical people being unable to empathise with neurodivergent experience, but that same is true in reverse.

I can’t empathise fully with a neurotypical experience of the world.

How does this impact on the communication of neurodivergent experience

When communicating our neurodivergent experience, we have no point of reference within the neurotypical cultural world. It is a problem of solipsism, where one can only prove their own consciousness. One can only experience the world through our own mind.

Any part of that experience we communicate to others is filtered through their own subjective world. Their interpretation of our attempt to communicate our experiences is entirely dependent on a near infinite number of variables, the sum of which create a reality that may or may not be both identical or entirely different to our own.

Where one might communicate that they have a particular experience; that experience may have an entirely different meaning to another person. We are constructed by the infinite possible combinations of interactions within our environment, and therefore, we can not definitively communicate our experience of neurodivergence in an objective manner.

To put it another way, all objective truths become subjective when interpreted by human cognition.

Therefore, we must always be aware that when we communicate our neurodivergent experiences, no one other than ourselves can truly understand those experiences as felt by our own mind. We also can not explain neurodivergent experience to neurotypicals entirely accurately because we also lack that point of reference within their own reality.

This is why we need to embrace diversity of experience, even within our own neurodivergent communities. Others having a different experience to us actually increases the likelihood of a neurodivergent person successfully communicating our exact experiences.

Concluding with the infinite monkey theorem

The infinite monkey theorem states that if one gave an infinite number of monkeys, a type writer each, and allowed them to randomly hit keys for an infinite amount of time; eventually one of them would randomly type the entire collection of Shakespeare’s works.

With regards to the neurodivergent community at large, the more of us communicating our diverse experiences, the more likely that someone will eventually find a way of fully explaining neurodivergence to a neurotypical person. We need to embrace difference within individual experiences. Rather than ignore and exclude those ideas that don’t necessarily make sense to us, we need to integrate the knowledge they offer, and see if their augmentation can bridge the double empathy divide.

David Gray-Hammond 0 Comments
Oct 19 2023
Autistic people and the cultural suppression of Autism

Autistic people have long talked of a world that is not designed for them. There are countless tales of the way that society is set up to be actively hostile to anyone who can not meet the neuronormative standards of their surrounding culture. This has led to a growth in online spaces of a separate culture which is broadly recognised as Autistic culture. These cultural spaces offer a vital reprieve from the hostility of the world, and yet we still find ourselves being penalised for existing as ourselves.

A colonial model of the cultural suppression of Autistic people

When I consider the cultural differences between Autistic and neurotypical people, I imagine it like a linguistic difference. Autistic and neurotypical people speak a different language. When we enter each other’s spaces we are perceived more as the obnoxious tourist than the valuable diversity of a given society. The issue is that through the proliferation of colonial ideals and subsequent neuronormativity, neurotypicals have invaded many of the spaces we may not have historically shared with them. Once they have entered our space, they place the burden to assimilate into their culture on us, rather than allowing us to respect our own cultural practices. Autistic culture is effectively colonised by neurotypical society.

Cultural suppression through autistiphobia and ableism

Ableism and autistiphobia have been growing exponentially alongside the rise of capitalism and neoliberalism. Autistic people may not have always been a recognised cultural group, but we have been recognised for a long time as “the other” that burdens society with its presence. Much of the rhetoric surrounding Autistic people can be attribute to autistiphobia, or to go further, autistimisia. Difference is detested in this world; and there is a special place in a hateful world for those of us whose difference precludes us from engaging in neuronormativity.

“No, there is no renaissance for ableism. It’s here, and it’s always been here.”

Gray-Hammond (2021)

Ableism and autistiphobia/autistimisia are not just the outcome of a society that does not understand. They are a weapon of those whose power relies on our cultural suppression. If those in power can suppress or even eliminate our culture they can then ignore our rights. The quickest way to do this is through the systematic dehumanisation of us. Culture is a uniquely human experience, and if Autistic people are disallowed from having a culture, part of our humanity can be denied.

The double empathy problem and cultural suppression of Autistic people

The double empathy problem explains the difficulty to empathise with people who have different cultural and life experiences us. For Autistic people, this represents a large portion of the world. The issue is that due to power imbalances between Autistic people and neurotypical society, we experience systemic oppression through the suppression of our culture. This leads to increased minority stress and the belief that Autistic people should meet neuronormative standards, rather than a give and take relationship where we meet somewhere in the middle.

Effective communication and co-existence is undermined by the forced assimilation of Autistic people into these neuronormative standards. While we may learn to operate within neurotypical culture, we have somewhat of a cultural accent that still declares us as different from the majority. To consider it another way, we are unable to win, no matter what we do.

Neurocosmopolitanism as the pinnacle of cultural thriving

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Such neurocultures as the Autistic community need a level playing field. While society continues to privilege one group over another, we will continue to see cultural suppression. We need to work towards building a world within which our culture has a place, rather than it’s current counter-cultural existence. We need our cultural spaces to be respected and protected rather than invaded and restructured into something that is antithetical to Autistic experience. We have a right to our existence, and it is time that the world caught up with that fact.

David Gray-Hammond 0 Comments
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