I want to talk today about being more than the labels we were given. Whether that’s short, tall, thin, big, smart, stupid, white, black or brown, LGBTQ. Sorry if I forgot one of those letters in there. Neurotypical or neurodiverse. I don’t want to minimize these labels if you think they are part of you. But I want to remind you that they aren’t the totality of you. I hope that makes sense. Do you ever feel excluded because of the label you were given by a social construct? I mean construct or by doctors, therapists, professionals, or politicians? I know for me it’s often difficult to think of my qualities that aren’t related to my NLD or chronic migraine condition. I do know that I am more than these two labels in my social life. I’m a podcaster minister’s daughter and one of the project social ambassadors for The NVLD Project In the work world, I am an admin app and a tech social media assistant. and freelancer with custom tech services.
In my personal life, I am a sister, daughter, mother to truffles. My dog and friends to many, but not many know that I am also a sexual abuse survivor, a marathon runner, a skier, environmental ambassador. I also don’t mind taking risks and seeing what happens because I’ve gotten used to doing this over the past nine years of knowing about my neurodiversity and migraine condition.
I want to try to close this episode by briefly describing to you what my labels mean. Because I feel like that might give you some insight to maybe what your labels mean to yourself. If you don’t already know what they mean to you. I’m not going to go for all the labels that I have, because there’s quite a few that I could think of, but I’ll go over the major ones. I always knew that I’m a sister and a friend, a caring individual, who helps in any way that she can, no matter what effort it takes. I love being a sister and a friend to whomever steps into my life. Not only am I a sister to my brother, Jonathan, but I feel like I’m a sister to some of the friends that I have.
But I also know that, I can also just be. Just isn’t the right word. I can also be a close friend to somebody without having to…. how do I want to phrase this? This. Without having to feel completely obligated to know everything about them because I don’t have to know everything about them. I’m comfortable with knowing what they want from me. Knowing what they want to show and what, I think, is beneficial. But sometimes knowing everything about somebody isn’t the best thing. And I mean by that, that sometimes, you may think, you know, everything about somebody that you’ve been living with your entire life. And then you realize that that’s not true. And, I think that’s happened to me a lot with my family in terms of realizing I thought I knew who somebody was and then them not responding in the way that I thought they would, around certain things that they realized that were, were, happening in the family. And with that, I’m referring to. The trauma that I experienced in my childhood.
So, and then, with NLD, I think I’m still learning what that means to me, but for myself. I think I do feel like it means that, yes, I have challenges that others may or may not experience. And because I have those challenges and because my brain is built differently than neurotypicals, my experience of life is different than somebody else’s. And that makes it more difficult for me to learn something that would be more simple for neurotypicals to learn. Like driving or how to manage a budget or how to cook a meal or how to go about a workday with being productive and getting things done and trying to not have it be stressful. I hope that shed some light on realizing that yes, we do have these labels that we are given by society, whether that’s, from, an academic or professional stance or a social stance, but the labels don’t make up completely who we are. It’s only one part of us or a part of us. And, we are more than the labels because. Yes, they are a part of us, but we are the person who lives with them and who is, being there for others in the best way that they possibly can while also trying to go through their own, personal things in their lives.
Jennifer
I am a Project Social Ambassador with NVLD and a chronic migraine condition. I share about my and fellow neurodivergents experience with their learning challenges and condition on my podcast, “Living With An Invisible Learning Challenge.” I have a full time job at a spiritual community as a tech, social media, and admin assistant. I am also developing a side hustle in the tech world of helping businesses and people with their personal projects. I have a passion for helping people in anyway I can no matter what I have to do in order to do so.
