I have this insane skill with words. I know more of them that anybody around me, generally. Then, usually, I can easily use the right words, in the right order, to concisely convey what I’m thinking–sometimes even feeling.

This skill, alongside other factors, has led people, including myself, to think of me as highly intelligent. Maybe that’s true, maybe not … even putting aside theories of multiple intelligences. All on a spectrum, too.

The skill is also the one major thing that gives me the appearance of being relatively normal.

That appearance is definitely misleading. I am, in almost no way at all, Normal.

I am, in the modern parlance, not neurotypical. I am, to slap a temporary word on it, neurodivergent.

As in, “A neurodivergent person has one or more ways in which their brain functions outside the typical way”.

There are different kinds of recognized neurodivergence:

(clipped from: What are the different types of Neurodiversity? )

One in five Americans is dyslexic to a greater or lesser extent. One in ten has some kind of ‘attention deficit’. One in 25 is ‘dyspraxic’. I don’t fall into any of those categories. Nor do I have Tourette’s, or any of the less common types of neurodivergence.

That leaves the possibility of autism. I’ve considered it before.

I considered it again when I stumbled across this:

Could you be Autistic and not even know? | 15 Signs of undiagnosed autism

There was a lot of overlap between who I am and the 15 signs, but other stuff didn’t fit. There are MANY Internet videos along these lines, most of them published by people who say they have the condition themselves, and who you would basically never guess do. I guess they’re autistic but ‘high-functioning’, as popular academic language would have it.

So I tried again to figure out an answer by taking a test, and it came out like this:

“Well, it’s like this, son. You’re sorta artistic and sorta not. We’re gonna call you spergy. It’s sorta Autism Lite!”

In my ungrateful opinion, that is … worse than useless.

I have an alternative theory. It goes something like this.

In more than one way, my brain functions outside the typical (normal, healthy) way. So I’m not neurotypical. I am quite markedly ‘neurodiverse’.

But it’s not dyslexia or ADHD or Tourette’s, and it’s almost certainly not exactly “Autism” either.

I am fucked in the head, both beautifully and pathologically.

I have Vairtere’s syndrome.

***

One more little thought, on the question of whether these Spectrum Disorders are mental illnesses, or not.

The first two links I found on the subject don’t see eye to eye with each other.

One says:
“Autism is not a mental health problem. It’s a developmental condition that affects how you see the world …”

The other says: “Autism spectrum disorder is indeed categorized as a mental disorder—also called a mental illness—in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5)”.

So what I want to know, Dr. Science, is, is Pluto a Planet?

We are now right up against the limits of the miracle of words.