Transcriber: Jennie González Reviewer: David DeRuwe
We all know someone who’s a little weird.
Someone who’s a little too eager, a little too enthusiastic.
Someone who doesn’t get the hint when you want the conversation to end,
so you have to plan your escape.
Someone who might think that you're on closer terms than you actually are.
Someone who has very specific interests
and thinks that you are just as interested in all the same things that they like.
We all know someone like this, right?
We all know someone who’s a little awkward.
Well, what if I told you that some people who strike you as weird or awkward -
they’re not suffering from any kind of moral or character flaw?
What if I told you that some people seem different to you
because they are literally wired differently?
Conditions like autism, ADHD, dyslexia, and tourette syndrome
all fall under the umbrella of something called neurodiversity.
The people who have these conditions are united by the fact
that their brain structure is physically different,
and that difference in wiring
leads to different ways of thinking, communicating, and experiencing the world.
One of the main ideas behind neurodiversity
is that different does not mean broken.
The term was created by a sociologist named Judy Singer in the 1990s
to refer to the infinite and naturally occurring variability of the human brain,
because we all have our own unique neurology,
and with it, our own strengths and weaknesses.
The problem for a lot of neurodivergent people
is that the world we live in was created with neurotypical brains in mind.
And as a result of this, neurodivergent people have to put in extra work,
constantly translating their thoughts and ideas and experiences
from one frame of reference to another.
Things are getting better.
We know more about conditions like autism than ever before.
We’re getting better at diagnosing various forms of neurodivergence,
and we’re getting better at creating more accessible environments
that work better for everyone.
But that’s not what I’m here to talk to you about tonight.
I’m here to talk to you about the weird kids, the quiet ones,
the ones who sit by themselves.
The kids who overreact or underreact or just act strangely.
The kids whose classmates will sometimes say to them,
“Why are you doing that? Why are you being so weird?”
The kids whose teachers sometimes will even say,
“You know, they’d have more friends and they wouldn’t get bullied
quite so much if they just made a little effort to not be quite so weird.”
As a middle school librarian, I really relate to those quiet, weird kids
that I work with because I was one of them.
I ate lunch by myself a lot,
usually outside because the cafeteria
was too bright and too loud and just too overwhelming.
I often only had one friend, and I spent a lot of time in the library,
which may explain how I ended up as a school librarian.
But I also had these unexpected, over-the-top meltdowns
caused by sensory overload
that were frequently misinterpreted to be intentional temper tantrums.
I struggled with changes in routine,
and I didn't know how to begin or end a conversation.
But since I did well in school, nothing really happened.
I was never recommended for an autism diagnosis as a kid.
My parents did have my hearing checked when I was five
because my mom complained that I never answered when she called for me.
She’d have to physically enter my line of sight
for me to realize that she was talking to me,
but I passed that hearing test with flying colors, and that was the end of it.
My parents did not know what autism was.
In the 1980s and the 1990s when I was a kid, autism was something
that was predominantly diagnosed in young white males who couldn’t speak.
So being a Puerto Rican and Mexican-American girl
who spoke relatively well,
I didn’t really have the traits
that people associated with autism at the time.
It would take over 30 years for someone to make the connection.
After five years of teaching special education
and working with neurodivergent students every day,
I learned that I had secretly been one of them all along.
I’m part of what researchers call “the lost generation of autism.”
The phrase was coined in 2015 by researchers at the University of Cambridge
to refer to a lot of different people:
women, people of color, trans and non-binary people,
all of whom had their autism go unnoticed and undiagnosed for decades.
Instead, many of us were just seen as weird.
And that lack of a diagnosis has had a severe impact on our lives.
It has affected our mental health,
our relationships, and even our career prospects.
The National Autistic Society in the UK
estimates that 85% of autistic college graduates are unemployed.
Only about 10% of us might be married,
based on studies from the University of Toronto
and the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto
found that autistic people are five times more likely
to be diagnosed with conditions like anxiety and depression.
And the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden has found that autistic people
are 10 times more likely to die by suicide.
The trauma that leads someone to take their own life
is not something that happens overnight.
It is the result of years of feeling misunderstood
and feeling like you are misunderstanding everyone else.
As neurodivergent people, we constantly contort ourselves
to fit the expectations of neurotypical society.
We constantly bend to meet the standards and the rules of the people around us,
but eventually if we’re not properly supported, we break.
My friend Scott used to read the phone book as a kid.
I read the encyclopedia, but he really liked numbers,
and Scott was a bit of a weird kid that grew up to be a bit of a weird adult.
He struggled to maintain relationships,
but he was never diagnosed with any kind of neurodivergent condition.
After knowing Scott for more than a decade,
I began to suspect that he might be wired differently, like me.
But what I didn’t know was how much he was struggling all on his own
because like so many other neurodivergent people, Scott was suffering in silence.
He put on a mask, a facade, of being perfectly fine while simultaneously
he was growing to believe that the world would be a better place without him.
The pandemic was Scott's breaking point. He died by suicide last October.
And the world is worse off because he's gone.
Just as a rainforest with biodiversity
is better equipped to adapt and respond to threats,
humanity needs neurodiversity.
We all benefit when we have different kinds of minds solving our problems,
creating our works of art, and enriching our communities.
But even if a neurodivergent person is not out there changing the world,
their life still has value.
We talk so much as a society about the importance of kindness,
but far too many of us will distance ourselves
from people we don’t really understand.
We tell autistic people that they need to learn better social skills,
but bridging that gap between autistic and non-autistic people
can’t fall solely on our shoulders,
because when we’re dealing with things like anxiety
or depression or suicidal thoughts, we don’t have that much left to give.
We need you to meet us halfway.
So tonight, I’m asking you to rethink the word “weird.”
Take that letter E and move it down just a couple of spots,
and you’ll end up with “wired,”
and that’s the word I want you to take home with you tonight.
The next time you meet someone who strikes you as weird or strange,
I want you to remind yourself:
their brain is probably wired a little differently than mine,
and that’s OK.
They might be neurodivergent, they might have post-traumatic stress disorder,
they might have some other condition,
but you don’t need to know their exact diagnosis
to be more compassionate and patient and understanding.
We will all ultimately benefit from a world
that is more empathetic and kind,
and the neurodivergent kids that I work with every day -
they deserve to live in that kind of world.
They deserve so much more than what my generation had.
So let’s work together and make this world a better place for all of us.
Thank you.
(Applause)