A Truth Inside My Fiction: Neurodivergence

I think a lot about fiction. It's important to me to write the kind of fiction that affects all of you and leaves you feeling better than when you started my story. For that, I think you have to feel the truths the story grew from. One of the things I write about is "neurodivergence." So let me tell you about one of mine.

Early on, I was diagnosed with ADD. Now, whether that was out of concern for my well being, or my 3rd grade teacher wanted to get the only Black child removed from her classroom, we will never know. Today, there’s much more clarity in the research around ADD, than there was thirty years ago. For instance, one thing that was not caught until recently was its connection to narcolepsy. That was a whammy prize I didn't open until my early twenties, and only after I fell asleep in traffic and nearly killed myself.

The narcolepsy side has affected my life just as much as the ADD. Maybe more so. Here's what it is to be narcoleptic, at least for me:

Obviously, I don't drive long distances without medication. What's particularly frustrating is when I'm writing or reading something complex (doesn't matter how interesting it is), my brain blue screens itself. Too much data, not enough bandwidth, I guess. That's the worst because there really is no fighting it. Just have to ride it out. It's not like in Adam Sandler movies (that kind is rather rare), at least not for me, though the neurologists who did the sleep study told me they had not seen my particular kind of narcolepsy before. My brain is apparently, "weird." I was not comforted by their excitement. Nobody wants to be a medical mystery.

Being narcoleptic means, every once in a while, my knees give out (cataplexy). It means, I can't always trust my own memory. There are gaps. Ask my wife. When I was younger, I suffered from sensory overload, when even my thoughts were too loud, and I'd hide my head under a pillow until the world settled down. That's become much more manageable over the years.

To my surprise, narcolepsy also means depression. For the most part, I keep that to myself. Other people have it way worse. With my brain chemistry, it's like I'm at the edge of a cliff and have to see the terrible things that are down there, but I don't fall in. When it happens, it's a surprise, but the feeling goes away pretty quickly. I'll count that as a win.

Being narcoleptic also means watching my youngest daughter with some trepidation because narcolepsy is genetic, and she is so much like me, it's kind of scary: daredevil-at-an early-age, level-ten-trickster energy. All things considered, I'd rather she get my ADD minus the narcolepsy. But that's not my call, and to be honest, I really, really like my perspective; I don't know how much of any of this is interwoven with the way I see the world. The way I experience words. My sense of empathy. The wall of thinking that protects me from my worst impulses (and the depression). The dreams while awake. I don't know.

I'm  lucky. I still get to do the things in life that I want with some additional guardrails in place. But as a teacher and language expert, I see so many kids who don't get those protections. They're told they’re lazy, or feel like failures because their minds do not conform to expectations which are always lagging behind the truth. Adults too. The ones who came out damaged because they couldn't see what they were. Nobody explained it to them, and they never got their moment of insight. That's one of the reasons I write stories like Daydreamer. I hope that finding stories like this will help. 
To me, neurodivergence means  learning how to live a life beyond a constellation of symptoms. Not just finding your place in society because, eww. Instead, living like you are poetry. 

Poetry is exactly what you are.