Diverging From What?

Hello Lovelies! As you know, not all disabilities are visible, which got me thinking. If mental health struggles constitute divergence, i.e. mental challenges...then I've known these people all my life. And the thing that blew MY mind that has been in survival mode for most of my life and thus filtering out everything that didn't really matter--there has not always been a DEFINITION for these mental challenges. As far as I can tell, the term "neuro-divergent" hasn't been in regular use before the last five or ten years. My apologies to those of you who've known about it and used it for years before that; either I didn't know you well enough to know your lexicon, or it was never really used around me because it was probably assumed that "neuro-divergent" was too technical a term to throw into regular conversation. Ha! One conversation with me would have allayed all your assumptions. I use what I call "heightened English" (that's what they actually called it when I was in high school or college) as a defense mechanism when I'm uncomfortable. I throw big, flowery, unnecessary, or TECHNICAL terms into regular conversations all the time. Kids, ALL the time, I do. Which then got me thinking some more. If I use words that not everyone uses, in a way not everyone does...that makes me a little unique too, doesn't it? Would that put me on the spectrum of neuro-divergence, though? I would imagine it just supports my long-held belief that there is NOOOOO such thing as "normal." Divergence, in my opinion, is a bit of a misnomer. From whence diverge? See what I mean? It's fun for me to throw in those incomprehensible phrases that get me blank stares until I break it down into more familiar vernacular. "How am I different? What exactly makes me so divergent?" Turns out, not much, if you ask me. As a case in point, I want to include the following reel. It explains something I really hadn't thought about, as these kinds of people were a part of my growing up; I never thought of them as anything other than friends. But according to science, medicine, or perhaps just linquistics...there was actually something about them I should have registered as divergent. Hmmm. Interesting. Particularly when you consider just how many millions of different ways there are to show affection in this world, and how many different kinds of people respond to different displays of affection--it almost feels silly to label these different kinds of lovers "neuro-divergent" doesn't it? https://www.facebook.com/reel/824018545613550 The immediate question THAT begs is this: don't you feel kind of silly labeling someone neuro-divergent for any reason? If we accept that there is no normal, that there are just different ways of doing things and expressing everything that makes us human--INCLUDING love, how small-minded is it to then to micrify the human thought/emotional/psychological experience into neuro-divergent? That is asking a lot of humanity. It's assuming there is some "original brain" against which all others can be measured, and thus labeled either "typical" or "divergent." If you ask me, that is too tall an order for something as complex as Modern Humans. It then brings into question evolution, and whether our "divergence" was granted us with creation, or just developed within certain individuals over time...and then why just them? Shouldn't we ALL have evolved along the same lines--or was there something in our individual circumstances that made us diverge? To further sticky this issue, let me throw in the fact that sexuality among individuals ALSO used to be considered a disorder of the brain. In the movie "The Imitation Game", set in WW2, an otherwise genius code-breaker was seen as having a mental deficiency because of his gayness, and was put on some kind of strange medication (I cannot even guess at the name or how it would fuction to suppress those emotions)...and we know now how futile and pointless and harmful and ENTIRELY misguided all of those efforts at "curing" gay emotions and behavior were. Because of course it did not originate in the brain. So does divergence of any kind originate entirely in the brain? Or are there some things, like love and the expression of affection, that come from our entire being? Certainly a cat's meow comes from the heart:) This would render all attempts at medical understanding pretty much powerless, and all attempts at fitting them neatly into a "typical" box absolutely nonsensical.