Weaving worlds with words

Using creative approaches to engage the interest based nervous system hypothesis, aphantasia, executive functioning, pathologisation and Indigenous ways of understanding autism

Photo by I Made Mindia Diana on Unsplash

Since I'm intending to get back to a more regular rhythm of communicating with you, I'm endeavouring to suppose I'm Miss Eliza Bennett in Pride & Prejudice, sitting down to ponder, feathered quill and ink pot at the ready to write a thoughtfully meandering correspondence to you. It's supportive to me to lean into an idea like this, rather than a sense I must, should or ought to write “for marketing purposes”, which alerts all my demand avoidance tendencies (and vomit reflexes, truth be told).

What images, characters or imagined lives can support you in carrying out activities in a way which feels more aligned with how you'd like life to be?

This is just one of the ways I work with my AuDHD interest based nervous system and incorporate Nik from ADHD Vision’s useful acronym N.I.C.E - Novelty, Interest. Challenge. Emergency - adding one or more of these to any humdrum or unappealing task is sometimes the Duracell an ADHD bunny needs to flick the switch from off to on.

The impact of words and aphantasia

Words matter to me, they can have an immediate and powerfully visceral effect that’s difficult to shake. I have to find the right words to access the right feeling to support an activity. Choose the wrong prompt and the programme won’t start. Loathe as I am to equate myself or any human to a computer, it's what came to mind.

It's not a visual image I get from words, rather a knowing or an embodied sense of their meaning. Words can make me shrink or grow with immediate effect. I have almost total aphantasia (inability to form visual images in the mind) and only experience any kind of picture in my mind if I've seen something recently or can recall a photograph or scene from a film or TV. Even then it’s not really a clear picture.

This is pretty common in autistic people, and occurs in the neurotypical population too and at differing levels. It’s quite interesting and enlightening when you start enquiring with people around you about how they experience the inner workings of their mind and imagination… Some people are super visual, experiencing vivid imagery, some people see nothing and other’s experience degrees between these two extremes.

Where do you fall on this scale or spectrum? How do you suppose you might be impacted if this were otherwise?

Executive functioning and pathologisation

I’m explaining this whole thing about words and images in case it’s of use to others of you who struggle to get started. You might call this “task initiation”, “lack of motivation” or “procrastination” (the latter of which is a word I don't like because I hear it so much, find it pretty meaningless, unhelpful and almost pathological in nature.

“Bad news: did you hear? There's been an outbreak of procrastination and X has come down with it. There’s no known treatment. The outlook is dire.”

I don't know about you, but telling myself I am procrastinating does nothing to help me find the impetus to begin a project or task. Whereas knowing I am lacking motivation and need to look for it - something to inspire or an answer I need which is vital to begin - is something I can actually do something about. Again, words and their impact. Also, specificity. What is it I need?

This is why understanding the way one’s unique mindbody works is so interesting (to me, at least). What drives one’s motivation? It might be something completely different to what one thinks it ought to be, or what it is for someone else.

In what circumstance have you found yourself able to move forward and take action quickly? In what situation do you find yourself stuck? What are your primary drivers in each of these cases? Are they internal or external? Perhaps both.

Autistic intrinsic motivation and Māori expression

Autistic people are thought to be driven by strongly intrinsic motivation, this might be why Keri Opai, a Māori language expert coined the term “Takiwātanga” for autism from “tōku/tōna anō takiwā”, meaning “my/his/her own time and space”, which I absolutely love. It describes the unmasked autistic experience in the most respectful, affirming, non-pathologising way.

Which brings me neatly round to share with you that my website is refreshed, reflective of the neuroaffirming coaching work I do with late realised neurodivergent clients. I support them to explore, understand, accept and celebrate the truest expression of themselves through a systemic lens, the neurodiversity paradigm, the social model of disability and wider liberatory theory.

Take a peek at how you can work with me and tell your friends. I have some limited capacity for 1:1 before the year is out, but am available for one offs and calls to discuss longer term work.

Here’s the thing, when there is a neurodivergent realisation or a diagnosis (or diagnoses), medical or otherwise, it's not only for the individual to integrate the experience and make meaning of the identifier. There's so much more to it than that. Ideally, there will be a process of change in every system within which the ND person exists. We don't simply need coping strategies and adjustments, we need understanding, acceptance and supportive communities. So this is what I strive to make some small contribution towards and what I’ll be striving towards in my work and writings. I want to change the way ND people feel about themselves, for good. And that means daring to dream of dismantling the systems of harm within which we exist.

“He mana tō te kupu” – Words have great power. Choose with care.