Neurodivergent people have always been there (we just weren't 'looking' before)

Many believe neurodivergence (autism, ADHD etc.) is 'new'. But it's been around and has shaped society for as long as humans have existed. We just didn't recognise it for what it was.

Image by Obregonia D. Toretto

The Guardian recently ran an article about The Stimming Pool, an “experimental film that ‘truly captures’ autism”.

However, I became aware of it due to people dunking on it¹ on social media, thanks to the opening paragraph which says that, despite there being 700,000 autistic people in the UK, there’s never been a theatrically released theatre film directed by a group of them.

Many interpreted this as the article was claiming that there’s never been a theatrically released film directed by an autistic person.

In defence of the article and its writer, they don’t say that. A more generous, and probably more accurate, interpretation of what is being said is that The Stimming Pool is the first feature film directed by a group of individuals diagnosed with autism, that’s ostensibly about autism.

It then basically goes on to celebrate the endeavour and the people behind it. Which is nice.

…but even so, that multiple took assumed it was claiming that no autistic person has ever directed a commercial feature film is clearly an issue. My friendlier interpretation included quite a few caveats, which I’d argue should have been included in the piece, not left up the the reader to figure out.

Why? Because, for all it’s assumed good intentions, this general theme of the piece is “Look at these autistic people, doing something no autistic people have ever done before”. And while this may be correct on a technical/pedantic level, it ultimately ends up offering a more positive twist on a common, recurring, and invariably harmful belief; that autism, ADHD, and general neurodivergence, are new things. Recent additions to human society, and we ‘didn’t have them in the old days’.

This is wrong, any way you slice it.

Neurodivergence is as old as our species

Image by Francesco Ungaro

“We didn’t have all this autism in MY day!” is a common complaint from older types, often made in response to news stories or comments about the rise in diagnoses, or someone just mentioning that they or their child has been diagnosed as autistic, or ADHD, or some other expression of neurodivergence.

Admittedly, you can sort of see where the original complainer is coming from. It does seem a very modern phenomenon. You certainly hear about it far more now than we used to, even compared to when I was growing up in the 80s and 90s².

But ‘hearing about something a lot more lately’? That’s wildly different to that same something not existing before recent times.

My go to example is, since the first probe landed there in 1971, human society has had access to an increasingly large volume of images from the surface of Mars. Yet you seldom hear anyone say “The Solar System never had this ‘fourth planet’ nonsense in the sixties”.

Sure it was ‘visible’ before then, as a slow moving pinprick of light in the night sky, or through telescopes, or via the mathematics of nearby stellar bodies. But now we can really ‘see’ it. Hence I feel this analogy works well for the increasing cultural awareness of neurodivergence.

Our rapidly increasing understanding and ability to recognise neurodivergence as a distinct trait is like a neuropsychological Mars probe; it allows us to actually see, in great detail, what was once more abstract and conceptual.

If you want to stick to more human, biological issues, you usually won’t find any mention of the word ‘cancer’ in the Bible, or other similarly historical texts, but it was obviously there³.

Or germ theory, the notion that diseases and infections are caused/spread by germs. Normally linked to Pasteur and co in the 19th century, someone saying “We never had all this ‘bacteria’ before those French scientists stuck their oar in!” would presumably be ridiculed. And rightly so.

And so it is with neurodivergence.

For as long as human society has existed, there have been people who have been somewhat ‘out of kilter’ with general norms.

While I would never actively remote-diagnose someone, looking back, numerous people I knew or encountered growing up displayed many classic traits and hallmarks of being neurodivergent in some way, and went (or are going about) their whole adult lives without ever being assessed or looked at by a professional about this.

That’s not a good thing, obviously. Just because someone can ‘function’ in the world, doesn’t mean they wouldn’t benefit from a lot of help. To paraphrase my Science Focus article on ADHD, being neurodiverse and becoming an independent adult without ever being diagnosed or accommodated

…is like a cross-country run while wearing a backpack full of rocks. It’s doable, but you won’t be as fast, and you’ll be more exhausted and drained by the process [than the typical unencumbered runner].

And when you consider that classic neurodivergent traits were displayed by some of the more prominent people in history, and the father of modern medicine, Hippocrates himself, supposedly identified ADHD back in ancient Greece, the idea that neurodivergence is a modern phenomenon is increasingly laughable.

Also, consider that things like autism and ADHD are known to be associated with a range of different complex genetic factors that interact and influence each other in complicated ways.

But such complex and sophisticated genetic traits don’t just appear overnight. They take a looooong time to evolve. It’s definitely not something caused by a single vaccine, or staring at a smartphone.

Why would such things evolve? There are a lot of theories around that. Ultimately though, the key quality of humans is our ability to collaborate as a community. That’s what made us the dominant, smartest species on the planet (at present).

But a community with only one way of thinking will grow stagnant very quickly, or be unable to react to adversity. Although, if you always have a part of the population who can’t help but think and see the world ‘differently’, you’ve much greater odds of adapting, reacting, and advancing.

Some argue that modern human society and behaviour wouldn’t exist as it does without neurodivergence. Even if you don’t agree with that (and it’s impossible to prove conclusively either way), it’s practically impossible to argue that neurodivergent people have been around the whole time.

Neurodivergence and creativity

Image by Landiva Weber

Autistic people are analytical, and have rigidity of thought. Those with ADHD struggle to focus or concentrate. Dyslexics can’t read or write very well.

These are just some of the stereotypes associated with neurodivergence. This leads many to assume/conclude that neurodivergent types aren’t very creative, or would fair poorly in the creative arts.

Obviously, that’s all nonsense. After all, 50% of the term ‘neurodiverse’ is ‘diverse’. While these stereotypical notions may be true for some, there’s tremendous variation in expression of autism, ADHD, and beyond.

Accordingly, it’s entirely possible to be autistic and absolutely excel at artistic expression. And there’s a lot of evidence which suggests that ADHD can be a boon to creativity.

Which makes sense when you think about it; if you’re constantly experiencing multiple thoughts, and paying attention to multiple things at once, then your mind logically would end up in new and interesting places, more often than the typical person’s.

And then there’s movie directing, the field which led to me writing all this. Naming no names, but consider that many of the most acclaimed movie directors were individuals who obsessed over their vision and portraying it correctly. Or who pored painstakingly over every little detail. Or planned for every possible eventuality. Or would pursue their project regardless of what others advised or warned. Or struggled to connect or empathise with their actors and crew, often seeming aloof and distant.

Again, I’m not going to diagnose anyone remotely, but there’s definitely a pattern there, right?⁴

Ultimately, I’d argue that genuine creativity, at its very heart, stems from seeing the world in a different way, or thinking different thoughts, to others, and wanting to share or communicate this in some manner. And in many cases, artistic expression is the most obvious (or only?) avenue.

I’ve dicsussed this before, regarding my time on the stand-up comedy scene, and how so many comedians are neurodivergent, or deal with mental health issues of some sort. Far more than the population averages would suggest.

My argument is, when you see the world differently to those around you, but are often excluded/shunned by others as a result, the opportunity to share your insights with multiple people, uninterrupted, in a manner they’ll appreciate and validate? This becomes compelling, not scary, like it is for most typical people.

And back to historical context, there are those who argue that many of the greatest artists were neurodivergent⁵. Perhaps because of the factors I’ve already mentioned? Who can say. I wasn’t there.

Interestingly, there’s another historical work of art that some argue was also produced by an autistic person. The 30,000 year old European cave paintings. Some of the oldest ‘art’ known to man.

It’s not exactly a consensus position, sure. But when you think about it, who was the first human to create ‘art’? Given that they presumably lived in a time with absolutely no precedent, little understanding of the world, and where day-to-day survival was an all-encompassing concern, who was the first human to think “I’m going to create representations of my tribe and the beasts we see, out of elaborate lines made from ash and bone, on the walls of our home”?

That surely wouldn’t have been a normal thought at the time. It would have meant thinking in a very different way to the norm. A divergent way, you might say.

I’m not definitely saying that neurodivergent people invented artistic expression and creativity in the first place. I’m just saying… it’s possible.

But what isn’t possible, given everything we know, is that the neurodiverse have only just appeared in human society, and are only now taking their tentative first steps into filmmaking.

And anything that implies this is the case should be questioned, however well meant it is. It just reinforces inaccurate, unhelpful beliefs that make things even harder for the neurodiverse. It allows the less-informed to blame their ‘conditions’ on other modern phenomena they don’t like, such as the aforementioned vaccines and smartphones.

It’s great that more neurodiverse people, with greater degrees of divergence, are being empowered to create things that tell their own stories, rather than having to adhere to what the neurotypical masses want.

But this doesn’t mean that the neurodiverse haven’t been there the whole time, shaping the creative output of our entire species. Just because they weren’t given the credit for it doesn’t mean it wasn’t happening.

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Another good expression of creativity and ruthless analysis is my latest book for kids, Why Your Parents Are Hung-Up on Your Phone and What To Do About It. Check it out, yeah?

1. The article, not the movie

2. I’m not as old as I seem. I met Lyn from Alan Partridge once and she guessed I was 53, a good 13 years beyond my actual age at the time. I didn’t mind at all, the anecdote was worth it.

3. Unless we’re talking about the astrological star sign Cancer, the crab. Which makes sense, as the word cancer stems from the Greco-Latin terms for ‘crab’, due to it’s aggressiveness and shape, apparently.

4. True, almost every example of the above behaviour comes from prominent male directors. But before anyone starts invoking the ‘extreme male brain’ theory at me, consider the ingrained misogyny of the movie industry, and that the most influential women in moviemaking in the old days were editors, which was often a similar job with nowhere near the credit or prestige.

5. The same is often said about historical artists and mental illness, but neurodivergence and mental health problems overlap considerably, for understandable, if depressing, reasons.