Who is the you? Which is the me? Waitâare there three?
You may find that you see everything one way, just as it is, until one day you question something and have a crisis, and make a big cognitive leap, and then suddenly, there’s another possibility.
You might find that you’re seeing everything a million different ways, completely overwhelmed, until one day, you have to get something done, and you have a crisis, and make a big cognitive leap, and then suddenly, there is only three.
One of you is going to be the me in a conversation with you some time today.
You’ll know, because you will find yourself thinking, âthis personâs thinking is so simplistic,â
or possibly
you will find yourself thinking âthat personâs thinking is so complex.â
Which one will be right?
If we pause, and reflect, and listen, and speak with care, i think you’ll see â(between you and me)â we’re not two, but three.
“Oh, come on Ryk, you’re being so persnickety with language again. Why don’t you just lighten up and hear what we mean, and not worry so much about how we say it?”
Why, thank you for being brave and vulnerable, and for speaking up when you feel the need arise. Here’s the thing: there are a lot, lot, lot of brave and vulnerable people who would speak up just like you did, if they had the language for it. Kids with autism. Neurodivergent kids. Trans kids. Immigrant kids. Kids with trauma. Grieving kids. All kids, really, but especially these kids. Kids whose experience on the inside doesn’t match the words they hear thrown around on the outside.
These kids cannot advocate for themselves, and often asking them to do so results in a painful cascade of expectations that can be paralyzing. Because they want to advocate for themselves. Believe me every part of their nervous system is doing its best to connect in nurturing ways.
If you’ve ever had the experience of “Yes!” upon hearing something expressed in a new way that aligns with your experience, you may be able to recognize the power of language to make one feel connected, in an instant. Like the whole world was waiting for this moment of connection of body, mind, and consciousness. A lot, lot, lot of these kids, our kids, have been waiting for a moment like this for their whole lives.
As we approach the end of Pride month, I recognize that I’ve been awash in a sea of colorful and descriptive language about identity from many angles, and I recognize that so little of it directly connects with my experience. Male is good enough, but only because I’m shy with my self-advocacy around gender. I don’t connect with enby or trans or agender inside, but you know who’s team I’ll be on in a bar fight. I just don’t want to take up all of the oxygen by claiming that space from someone who does feel that “yes” when they hear it.
And I know I’m not straight (damn straight), but bi, gay, queer, aromantic, pansexual (sorry if I left anyone out)ânot quite feeling it on the inside, but definitely who I’m hanging with on the outside. And, not having that big “yes” experience when I hear them, I may seem like I’m not coming when I’m called to advocate or celebrate. It’s not because I don’t want to, but because I don’t always recognize myself.
And ‘othering’ is like that. A lot, lot, lot of people, not just kids, have a big loneliness inside, because as humanity is lining up for it’s various functions, they are not 100% sure about which line is theirs. Maybe they’d rather divide themselves up and be in all the lines. Because they want want want to connect, but the lines of connection are not always clear.
So, in being responsive with my language, I’m being brave and vulnerable, and advocating for that little kid inside who is experiencing life boiling and freezing and rumbling and flowing and ouching and aahhing inside, but hasn’t found the right words to express it. And is waiting waiting waiting waiting endlessly waiting for that moment of “yes.”
Happy Pride Every day is neurodiversity awareness day.
As I recognize that my child has moved beyond the range of my radar, my only comfort is in knowing that the last thing I said to him was:
“I see you and recognize how your body and mind are working things out in their own way. I’m sorry for the unhelpful and unrealistic expectations that I put on you. You will try and fail according to your own particular set of circumstances, and you will always get another chance. I love you. You are perfect.”
Me: It’s not a condition â it’s a predisposition.
Friend: What is?
My particular nervous system processes my experience through language. I have experiences, and some part of me chews and chews and chews and digests and then out comes a word (this didnât start as a scatological reference, but here we are).
Much of the language around neurodiversity is pathologized. We âhaveâ ADHD, like we âhaveâ the flu. Itâs a condition, like rheumatoid arthritis.
I believe that differences in our sensory processing are just that: differences. Like moods. Or characteristics.
So, being someone who cannot imagine visual imagery, and who has limited fine motor coordination, and who experiences frequent emotional dysregulation (has big feelings), and who is hyperaware of certain sensory environments and hypoaware of others (that all describes me), and in connecting with other people who have similar-but-different experiences, Iâm highly dissatisfied with a lot of the language thatâs out there to describe the traits of people like (yet unlike) me.
It’s Pride month, and on this day, the Supreme Court of the United States voted to allow parents to disenroll their children from classes that include language around LGBTIA+ identity. This is, in effect, re-pathologizing a predisposition (a predisposition is a tendency, a particular personal expression style: so-and-so is predisposed to snarkiness; that dude is predisposed to making puns; this person is predisposed to process their grief through artmaking).
If we don’t have safe language to describe people-as-they-are-predisposed-to-be, then people not only get left out, but they get isolated, shamed, and ‘othered.’ So my ever-chewing brain is always trying to poop out new words to celebrate difference â the collective variation that makes us such a successful species in the first place.
So no, I don’t have a condition, I have a predisposition.
Remember, it was only in 1973 that homosexuality was removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, and only in 1987 that language around gender dysphoria was removed. So those are the dates that those predispositions were ‘officially depathologized.’ But those actions were not accompanied by a corresponding shift in the language around these predispositions, so they are still existing in the language as if they are ‘conditions,’ (subtly implying that they might eventually go away, like eczema). (Which also describes me, and which comes and goes).
The Supreme Court’s action today is akin to the Catholic Church making heresy of the discussion about heliocentrism in the 17th century. And as someone speaking from the future, I’m telling them: you are idiots who condemn your own people to eternal suffering with your stupid-ass amplification of old-ass outdated viewpoints. F**k y’all.
So yes, depathologize language around difference. Does that answer your question?
Imagine a conversation about a trip to a museum between a person whose instrument of recall includes a detailed cinema projected onto the back of their eyeballs and a person with no access to visual formations at all.
Imagine a conversation about a favorite album between a person who hears symphonies in their inner ear and a person whose sound world is silent until they turn on a switch.
Imagine a conversation about an emotional interpersonal exchange, between a person with no internal monologue, whose descriptions of phenomena are all received and applied, and a person with a vast hum of crafted and iterated dialogue, just beneath the voice.
Imagine a conversation about a trip to the amusement park, between a person whose everyday experience includes frequent aggressive intrusions from textures, temperatures, and smells and a person whose sensory categories are hot, cold, pain, pleasure, and neutral.
We should imagine these conversations, because if we are having conversations, then it’s nearly certain that we are at times speaking across vast and varied sensory processing landscapes in such ways. When you live in a body, it’s easy to think that the world is the world, and everyone has the same sensory frameworkâour different takes on things are just due to our different vantage points and past experiences.
That is just not how it works, sweetie.
I have aphantasiaâthe inability to form internal visual images. If you ask me to visualize an apple, try as I might, eyes open or closed, I have no visual memories to draw from. That being said, I can describe an apple. There is an archetypal apple stored in my body, bringing together the feeling of roundness, the temperature of red, the mass of things that weigh a little less than a pound. I just don’t ‘see’ it.
My visual processing of text is probably due to aphantasia. I experience text as simply a texture on the page until I ‘zoom in’ with my attention. I can only read at the speed at which I could read aloud, as I experience the parsing through my audio and speech mechanisms. I’m not actually moving my lips or throat, but there is a ‘feeling’ that there is activity going on in my speech processing area just beneath the realm of sound production. If I recall something I’ve read, I am actually recalling the conversation I had with the page.
I was talking with someone recently about how we process communication on social media platforms. They were describing how they get overwhelmed very quickly because they feel bombarded by all of the information. I realized that, because I have to zoom in and slow down to parse the text, I stay in the texture realm until I make a judgement that something is worth the high-energy-consumption activity of reading. I’m not so troubled by ads, because they are visually obvious most of the time and I just scroll past them in blur mode. I probably miss a lot this way, but maybe that’s a good thing.
So, while some would call aphantasia a ‘sensory processing deficit,’ it’s also a superpower in certain contexts.
This should not be controversial.
We know through an artist like Stevie Wonder, who is blind, that blindness gives him access to a whole other level of sensory awareness that most sighted people don’t have access to (remember him catching the mic stand?).
Another characteristic of the aphantasiac (cue Flashdance music) is that we tend to be verbose and we rely on our semantic and conceptual memory. So it’s the conversations that are happening in my mental processing that result in my working things out and expressing them through complex symbolic languageâi.e. I express myself through metaphoric and logical language constructions, which in some contexts is a highly valued skill, and it’s ‘because’ of a supposed deficit in my visual processing. Say that five times fast.
Aphantasia, or other sensory blindnesses, are only deficits in the context of comparison to a standard model of competence or awarenessâthe standard model human is expected to have equal sensory aptitude in all of the recognized senses within a certain median range. Anything else is called a deficit. Even though the blindness aspect of processing often results in an increased awareness of non-visual sensory stimuli, our language and cognitive culture will dwell on the deficit.
Disclaimer: I’m going to do a lot of editorializing. This essay is a personal reflection, and so being is only a description of my experience of my senses, and my experience of the differences in expression that I notice when having conversations. If you recognize yourself, and feel yourself represented here in a negative light, don’t let it offend youâwiden your view.
So, if you’re still with me, I’m going to introduce the idea (actually the phenomenon, because if you’ve experienced it, it’s not just an ideaâit’s the law) of neurotypical bias. And, because I’m going through a period of heightened awareness of this, due to my recent diagnosis, I’m going to hold it up as a bugaboo which is at the root of all of society’s problems. I will only be half kidding. Because yeah guys, this is a problem. But it’s a problem that we all can counter with our powers of self-awareness. It’s one of the few of society’s power dynamics that we can actually change by changing our own perspective. And that is powerful.
Ok, lots of chauvinism and stereotyping to come, so hold on.
Our culture positions neurotypical traits as ‘typical’, and deviations from those traits as ‘divergent,’ or statistical anomalies. In my experience, the person or institutional culture that characterizes the neurotypical processing style is more prone to see the deficits in another’s processing style than the advantages that arise from that deficit. It’s not a balanced view. But it is very prevalent, and influences systems of power in various social spaces.
It’s the kind of view that identifies with the better expressions of their own nature while pointing out the negative aspects of those they consider different or ‘other,’ and at the same time claiming the positive aspects of wider cultural expression as their own.
Let’s go back to my own experience. Given that my neurotype is prone to loquacious constructions that draw from logical and conceptual memory processing, my questions and expressions have a certain character. I’m drawing from the information that is made available to me by my wiring and chemistry. Here are a few responses that I am very familiar with:
You’re overthinking it
That’s very creative (with a certain condescending tone)
I don’t understand where you’re coming from. You’re obviously confused
Hmm (silence)
Yet, from my experience, I can have a similar conversation with a person who is sympathetic to my neurotype, and who maybe has an overlapping set of experiences, and they will give very different responses:
I’ve been trying to think of how to articulate that, and you hit it on the head
You’ve given me a lot to think about (with no condescending tone)
Dude! Right?
Let’s come back to this
Here’s the thing: It’s usually the neurotypical response described above that is given by a person in a position of power or authority, relative to mine (in my experience). The second set of responses are more characteristic of people who I would consider peers, or people who actually want to move the conversation forward, rather than codify it.
Here’s my loquacious logical conceptual projection onto the situation. In some way, the neurotypical sensory apparatus, or psyche, recognizes that it is in a kind of middle ground. It recognizes the overlap with others who may be deficient in some ways, yet super-proficient in others. In the giant Venn diagram of sensory awareness, it recognizes its place in the middle. No problem here, as this is just the way of all phenomena.
For whatever reasonâcultural power dynamics, human cognitive bias, economic securityâfrom this center of the Venn diagram, the people and organizations of people who inhabit this sensory space, tend to think that their way, their view, their socio-cultural position, is the right one, and that somehow, a healthy culture is one that reflects exactly its perspective, values, and solutions. In terms of power dynamics, (and I’m describing socio-cultural power, economic power, intellectual power), rather than functioning as a facilitator or hub, a space of connection and intersection, the representative individuals and social organizational units that inhabit this space tend to demand conformity from those that surround them.
And yes, this is a big problem. This intersectional space that could potentially have our backs and bring us together is instead demanding fealty and tribute. Think of a series of overlapping circles. There are forces that are working to include the wider circles. And there are forces that are working to narrow to exclude to wider circles. Neurotypical bias works like this. In demanding conformity, it excludes a big range of color on the spectrum, where it could be operating in a space of great creativity and accommodation, being at the center of the circle regardless of how wide it grows.
So, neurotypical bias is the kind of view that forces those in ‘divergent’ intersectional spaces to conform to their views and values, rather than widening the narrativeârecognizing the privilege of their position and acting to amplify those who intersect with them, making the space bigger for everyone. Do you follow? Have you ever experienced being on either side of this narrative in a workplace? In your home? In some other social space?
Just use my own example of how my perceived deficits result in a certain way of contextualizing the world. Using this idea of ‘people who process visual memory differently tend to express their experience loquaciously through logical and conceptual constructions, rather than literal ones.’ Who might be observed to fall into this category? Shakespeare? Dogen? Whitman? (dare I say it, Jesus?, for you listening in the back). I’m not trying to elevate myself to this realm of cultural relevance, but am just making a straightforward connection, vis-a-vis sensory processing.
If you’ve ever heard a phrase like “if Jesus were alive today, you would reject him,” that rejection would likely be because of neurotypical bias.
And as I listen carefully in the spaces I move through, I so often hear examples of when a wide worldview is condensed and reduced by someone inhabiting that center space, and then that reduction is sold back as reality to a person who actually understands the wider original. Which leads to another thing I notice â that people whose perceptions exist outside of that statistical center space tend to be more open and accommodating (perhaps because they understand the difficulty in changing some people’s minds), while those in the middle tend to be more rigid and attached to their view.
So chew on and consider this, as you try to make sense of the sensory world, and consider how your sense of your senses intersects with the sensory expressions of those you are in conversation with. Consider whether our sensory gaps represent a division, or a widening of, your shared expereience. Are you advocating for a conception you hold that, being the only one you are aware of, makes good sense? If so, you are likely protecting a neurotypical bias. Are you trying to share a part of your experience that is complex and nuanced, using the words that come to mind, knowing that you are doing reality an injustice, but doing your best anyway? You might be widening the world.
And what if we take this even further â that, rather than the typical/divergent binary construction, each of our perspectives could be represented as coordinates in a vast 3-dimensional network, and that, being connected, we actually need one another, depend on one another, nourish one another.
Treading the middle way, don’t be attached to the middle way. Understanding neurotypical bias, widen the narrative, rather than demanding conformity.
We hear this phrase a lot: just show up. It seems to make a lot of sense. If everyone shows up, we have a party. Hurray. If no one shows up, no party. Boo. In the West we’ve grown up to think of ourselves as unique, individual beings that are also somewhat interchangeable. We all have all of the qualities, and it’s a matter of developing those qualities equally. A good community will simply be a collective of balanced individuals who each have worked hard to bring forth all of the qualities.
We will all show up equally for each event. We do everything together! We sit zazen together! We demonstrate together! We feed the hungry together! We clean the temple together! In this model, it’s easy to see what people need to work on, and who’s doing the work.
Someone with a crooked posture should give their attention to sitting up straight. Someone who naturally sits up straight should focus more on kind action. If we show up, and work together in this way, it seems like eventually everyone’s qualities will balance out and we’ll have a strong community. And if someone is not showing up, they’re obviously not doing the work, right?
But what if this model is kind of backwards?
Story time!
Let’s look at three different teachers’ ways of asking students to show up. Their different approaches to working with students might inspire us look deeper into the methods of our own teachers, and think about our own practice in a new light.
First, let’s get to know these two students a little better.
The student with crooked posture has the aspiration to have a straight posture, and yet they were born in a body that is naturally crooked. Their insecurity about their crooked body has nurtured a natural instinct to be kind, and they don’t have to work hard to spread the seeds of kindness in the world. They accept the kindness the world offers them, and focus on the struggle in their body.
The student with the naturally straight posture does not struggle physically on the cushion. Their mind, however, is highly attuned to moral conceptions regarding right and wrong in the world. Their foundational experience is the body at rest, and their aspiration is to right the wrongs of the world through engaged action. Because of the anger and dissatisfaction in their mind, their actions often spread the seeds of conflict.
Let’s observe how three different teachers work with these two students, and how they encourage them to show up. We don’t have to say whether this teacher is good or that teacher is bad, because we will observe their actions, and make our own choice.
Disclaimer: (trust me, some will need to hear this stated explicitly. You know who you are. And if not, you should!). These vignettes are based on archetypes: they do not represent real students or teachers, and students and teachers will not been seen as fitting into to any of these archetypal roles completely. And the directions suggested here are not prescriptive, just as koans are not life instructions. They are simply useful characterizations with which to describe and observe certain aspects of practice.
The first teacher encourages their students’ aspirations through their deep respect for form.
Meeting the crooked student, they encourage their aspiration to be straight. They encourage the student to show up by sitting zazen diligently, and learning from their pursuit of their aspiration. Since their self-conscious instinct is that they need to straighten up, and the teacher is confirming that instinct, they work hard, and you can always see them showing up. The student struggles for years and years, and seems like a diligent student, and yet, no matter how long they practice to be straight, for them, crooked is straight.
Since the student is spending so much time showing up on the cushion, they are not out intersecting with the world in the kind ways that naturally flow from their heart.
One day, they force their body into a straight posture. In doing so, the naturally crooked student has worked their way into an unsustainable situation, that takes all of their energy to maintain, and they have no energy left over to share their natural gifts of kind action with the community. The teacher, from their perspective of deep understanding of form, commends them for their diligent practice, not recognizing the sacrifice they have made. They have attained the form of practice, yet in doing so had to abandon their true nature. Using all of their effort to maintain the form, and having been affirmed by their teacher for doing so, they lose sight of their natural gifts of kind action.
The same teacher recognizes the aspiration of the student with straight posture to kind action, and encourages them to show up by devoting themselves to engaged practice, involving themselves in all manner of interactions to create peace in the world. The student has already attained good posture, so the teacher instructs them in the eightfold path and answers all of their questions about right action and right intention. Yet, because the student’s mind is confused, they continue to spread the seeds of conflict through their attempts at right action.
In showing up for the world, and the forms of engaged practice, they experience conflicts. Focused fully on their intention, they don’t recognize when those conflicts are caused by their own actions. Not having a way to restore balance, and not recognizing that they are moving away from their natural center, the student’s physical practice suffers, eroding their natural straightness, and robbing them of the energy to practice in the world.
The second teacher encourages each student to consider the nature of emptiness. They see each student equally, and advise each with the same encouragement. They understand that the forms are just forms to create space to focus on emptiness.
This teacher gives the same advice to both students: “The way is vast. Understand yourself, and you will understand the way. ” Each time the students question the teacher, they are given this same admonition.
The first student, taking for granted their tendency to be kind, instead engages their self-conscious instinctâthey focus on their aspiration to be straight. In showing up faithfully for zazen, the student abandons interactions which engage their kind instincts, (which result in spreading the seeds of kindness in the world), in favor of their aspiration, which results in diligent practice directed toward straightness.
The second student, taking for granted their tendency to be straight, instead indulges their self-conscious instinctâthey focus on their aspiration to change the world for the better, and show up by engaging in good works. The student ignores their straight posture and instead focuses on action to make things better, and in doing so, they spread the seeds of their anger in the world.
The third teacher has a different relationship with form and emptiness. They see from where the student’s aspirations arise, and understand how those aspirations hide their gifts. They understand that the two students will better understand their own nature if they co-practice and observe one another mindfully, rather than just sharing the space. Each student’s natural inclinations will show something to the other, and they will slowly change one another over time.
The teacher understands that the crooked student will never be straight, and that they will, without much prompting, put just enough effort into being straight if they observe the straight student during zazen. The crooked student, whose actions in the world already spread the seeds of peace, knows naturally how to avoid harmful action. They are encouraged to keep showing up in the world, and to just come and sit zazen when they can. In observing the straight student’s posture, they are encouraged to be straight enough. Through their strong empathy, they will recognize the anger in the straight student’s mind and will consider ways to help them soften.
On the other hand, the straight student is encouraged to show up by devoting much time to the cushion, where they naturally inspire others, and spend less time sowing the seeds of conflict through their actions. The teacher encourages the straight student to tread lightly in the world, and observe the ways of the crooked student, whose kind choices are not ones that arise naturally in the straight student’s mind.
Over years of practice together, the straight student, with their strong discernment, learns to recognize kind action through observation, and because their posture is already straight, their time on the cushion is able to be well spent considering kindness, and their anger becomes transformed. They learn to have more respect for a student who, though appearing crooked, has cleared the mind.
The crooked student, having watched and considered the confusion and anger of the straight student, has learned to convey empathy in ways that the straight student can understand. Having a straight partner, they straighten just enough, without making it the focus of their aspirations.
End of story time!
How did that story land? Do we recognize anything about the role our aspirations have played in our practice? What do we observe about our practice spaces, our fellow students, our teachers? Do the ways students are being asked to show up reflect an understanding of their character? Are students being lectured about what kind action looks like, or are they being encouraged to observe it in others?
Your words are deeply considered, heartfelt, and well-chosen. I thank you for making the time and having the patience to articulate the shape and the boundaries of this great matter. I believe I understand them, as I have considered these things myselfâprobably not thoroughly enough, but thoroughly.
If you are willing to listen, I will share with you what happens in my body and consciousness when I hear your words, and what I am forced to reconcile in this body, as a person who loves.
If things are simple, and clear, as you say, it seems then not expedient to reason with evil, knowing its ways, but instead to exercise a duty to humanity to excise it from our midst. We should have our swords always at the ready. It is clear, simple, transparentâwe get hints from people’s words and actions, and so warned we can look them up in the directory, and seeing their names, take them out quickly as they exit their homes. In doing so, we are protecting the future from their influence.
Just like in Rwanda in 1994, when people who were once subjugated rose up in a great paroxysm of cleansing, healing justice, leaving behind no trace of tyrrany.
Today is no different. The lines are clear, and were not drawn by us, but by nature itself. We see the world clearly and know on which side truth and justice is embodied: colonizer/subjugated, privileged/disenfranchised, cruel patriarch/thwarted nurturer, terrorist/protector. These distinctions are clear and mutually exclusiveâit is not possible to inhabit overlapping spaces. To consider nuance only serves to allow evil to infiltrate every space, and cause the righteous to suffer ever longer.
I have considered this narrative deeplyâas it is deeply compelling. We even have more examples from history that seem to affirm it’s rightness:
The French Revolution, where the impoverished massesâunwashed and taunted to just eat cakeâexploded in a chaotic but righteous, joyous triumph over a parasitic class of princes that didn’t consider them human; and then arranged themselves into the shape of The Republic;
The Bolshevik Revolution, where long-suffering peasants, who worked the land yet lived on one turnip a day for generations, stormed the Winter Palace, forever ending the Empire of the High-Blooded, and leaving in its place a blanket of cooperation that covered the land;
The Cuban Revolution, where enlightened and thoughtful students of Marx led the long-subjugated campesinos to overthrow a brutal dictatorship fueled by the Imperialistic industrial capitalism of the United States, and nurturing an alternative paradise of health care for all and respect for different opinions.
In all of these cases, the lines were clear, were they not? Lives were lost, but the end justifies the means, does it not? Should not justice prevail, where evil is overcome? Knowing our rightness, as we consider the mistakes of the past, are we not immune to them?
Considering this, as I observe the world through the lens of history, as I bear witness to the chaos and division that surrounds me, seeing through the misty cloud of nuance and whataboutism, I now recognize my hesitation, my stopping to reflect:
and it is more terrible than cowardice.
Were I simply a coward, my hesitation could simply be seen as a momentary pause, an eddy in the great, overwhelming tide of cathartic, healing justice, that will then allow itself to surrender finally to this righteous, cleansing force. No, my hesitation is something much more damning than cowardiceâit is moral blindness, ignorance, craven disregard for truth, which makes my failure to act more willful and undermining of the revolution, and of justice itself.
The matter being as simple as it is, and the delineations between fairness and tyranny so clear and apparent, I realize, as I stand in the street, sword in hand, wearing the armor of my isolation, as my neighbor exits their house: I don’t recognize their nature. Having read, understood, and internalized the directory, my mind fails to recall if my neighbors’ names are in it.
And worse than that, I see, animating the movement of my neighbor’s limbs, some gentle spark, some faint, hovering quality, that almost resembles humanity.
And I understand now that this failure is nothing but a betrayal of the revolution, of good, and of the pure justice of nature itself.
Arising from this confusion, doubt, and malicious disembodiment of nature’s pure purpose is a question:
You see an old man in the parking lot, losing control of his cart, and you’re right there, and your hand instinctively reaches out and stops the cart from rolling, and you pause, just long enough to show safety with your body, and say:
“it’s fine,”
and move on.
And then, a second later, you are standing across from a young woman screaming at her wailing child:
“chill tf out!”
And your body is frozen, except for the heart that pumps as if it is trying to put out a fire. Which it is.
And as you bear witness, you wish that it was this cart your hand could instinctively reach out and stop from rolling.
I post a lot about politics on Facebook and my personal blog, and I have many strong and specific opinions. I also have joined many special interest groups on social media. It would never even occur to me to share my political opinions in these special interest groups, but I understand why some might.
Iâm also neurodivergent, and I post a lot about that. Again, if I wanted to start a hyperlocal neurodivergence group, I feel empowered to do so, and wouldnât consider posting in my local community group (though I might introduce myself there and invite folks to join my group if they like).
As a neurodivergent person, I have a lot of practice stepping on various boundaries that I did not understand intuitively. And, I understand a wide range of reactions to being reminded of a boundary.
Boundaries are social constructs, like gender and sexual preference. They may seem simple and obvious to some, but for others, it’s complicated, and the lines are not bold and defined. Social groups have a lot of unspoken codes that most people follow without necessarily even recognizing them until one of them is violated. When that happens, sometimes the group responds by adjusting the code to include the new behavior (again, often without even recognizing that itâs happening). Sometimes the group responds in a defensive way to reinforce the code.
People have a wide range of responses to being made aware of or reminded of a code. For some, they actually find it helpful, and they are able to contextualize the reminder as a frame for understanding the groupâs character. For others, boundary reminders are always to be pushed back against, because boundaries are the enemy of freedom and a means of exclusion (which sometimes is actually the case).
As part of my particular neurodivergence, I experience something called Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria (RSD). Because I understand this, I can be accountable for my feelings when it arises. But before I understood it, I experienced a lot of defensiveness when I was reminded that I had crossed some boundary I hadnât intuitively been aware of. Hearing the reminder, I would feel rejected, isolated, and judged from without, and ashamed, embarrassed, and frustrated from within, knowing that my intentions were good, but now feeling like I will never be seen and have my needs met by the community. And all of this can happen in a fraction of a second.
Until I learned to understand this phenomenon, I would often either become defensive, or just disappear so that I didnât have to feel like my presence was a reminder of my shameful act. Itâs a rough spiral if you donât understand it.
Having unraveled this to a certain extent, I can feel and understand how people can experience a boundary reminder as a personal rebuke. It sucks to feel that way. It also sucks for the person exercising the boundary to receive the kind of response that a person who feels shamed can give.
Because nobody asked, here are some unsolicited helpful tips for people on both sides of this type of online boundary issue.
For the person reminding someone that their behavior/language/tone/content has overstepped a boundary:
Remember that the person may not be aware of the boundary in the first place. Although to many, coloring within the lines seems obvious and uncontroversial, these social constructs are not clear to everyone. Always lead with love. Is the person violating the boundary out of clear defiance and disregard, or are they expressing a valid sentiment in a forum that is not habituated to accepting and including that sentiment? Don’t take the codes for granted and assume the worst. If a person walks into your flower shop looking for disinfectant, don’t right away make them feel stupid for having come to the wrong place. Let them know that you understand what they are looking for, and that it is available right across the street. Be willing to walk them there.
If a person is expressing fear, isolation, or rejection, try to remember what these feel like, even if you don’t agree with the way the person is expressing them. When a person is in that place of fear, it can be very hard to hear that they have also done something wrong. So try to let the person know that you hear them, see them, accept their feelings (because they can’t just turn them off to fit into the group’s code), and gently try to redirect them as in the example above.
Remember that boundaries are social constructsâa set of unspoken assumptions about the nature of reality that not everyone holds or conforms to or is even aware of. Telling someone they have crossed a boundary can be received as if you were telling them that they don’t conform to the gender presentation that you expect of them, or that the sexual preference they are expressing is shameful or inappropriate. Social constructs are super weird: obvious to some, and completely a mystery to others. Realizing this, we can avoid pitfalls by examining our own assumptions, listening deeply to what’s being expressed, and understanding what is needed in the situation for everyone to feel safe and heard. Because we all deserve to feel safe and heard.
For folks feeling rejected, isolated, or defensive for having been reminded that their behavior/language/content crossed a boundary:
Try to understand that the person enforcing the boundary or code may not even be aware that that’s what they are doing, because to them, they are just exercising common sense, that they believe everyone understands, except for people who are uneducated or who are willfully violating the boundaries. They think they are doing the right thing and you’re doing the wrong thing (notice that I said may, because not everyone is coming from this place). They may not have experience with including different views relative to the code. But understand that they are basically responding to your idea, and not your person (unless they are making it personal, in which case, it’s not going to be easy to educate them, so maybe disengage for a moment, because they’re lost too).
Try to be aware of the way shops are arranged in a townâthere’s the flower shop, the candy shop, the drug store, the grocery store, the record shop (I’m old). While there is some overlap, each shop has a vibe and a range of products. If you keep asking for disinfectant in the flower shop, the shop owner is likely to become frustrated, and perhaps enraged. Know that if they are expressing that they don’t have disinfectant, that’s not about you. It’s just the limitation of their shop. Social media does have a town square: it’s the main platform, outside of the groups. The groups are like specialty shops, so that people entering those shops can have their expectations met. They are not necessarily trying to exclude people, they are just trying to limit the expectations to focus on a particular product. For some of us, this seems super weird, because all of the boundaries seem arbitrary, and we feel like we’re not being met where we are. But try to understand that the boundary they are showing you expresses their limitation, and not yours.
If you are finding that your language/behavior/content is causing people to react negatively, again, try to step back for a moment and not take it personally (super hard, I know). Consider whether there is another forum that might be more accepting of your expression, and more willing to meet your needs. If you are not aware of a place, and your desire is to post on social media, know that you are empowered to create forums like the one you are posting in that can meet your needs. For example, if you are wawnting to connect with folks around the issue of neighborhood safety, you can start a group specifically for that purpose, and then invite folks from the first group to join you. I have done this, so I am speaking from experience, and it can be a game-changer in terms or feeling heard and appreciated. You have options. Even though it feels like a fight-or-flight situation, you have options, and you can create the kind of community you envisionâit just takes some extra work. But people may end up being grateful for that extra work, and that’s a win for everyone.
Lead with love. Listen deeply. Don’t take it personally, but respond personably. Kindly redirect. Read the room and feel empowered if the room doesn’t hear youâmake a new room.
