I’ve been mentally prepared since I started this list for a comment such as this. To be fair, before I start my response, I haven’t read my summary since I started this list and lowkey uninterested in doing so because I remember it being very disclaimer-y and my best attempt at being unoffensive. Also, what we can say are my credentials before getting into this are that I personally have several mental health diagnoses, but more importantly I work as a service dog trainer. I specialize in working with new teams and reinforcing/refreshing previously learned behaviors. As a bonus, I have one sibling with autism and another who is a wheel chair user. (A fun fact- both siblings have service dogs which inspired my profession)
Anyways, on to my response!
I purposely named it neurodivergent and differently abled because they’re both broad-spectrum terms that can include both diagnosed and undiagnosed conditions, and at times temporary ones. They both have the capacity to include a very wide variety of both physical and mental conditions as well. Anxiety and depression both certainly fall within that category. Obviously I can’t speak for every person with either condition, nor would I attempt to, but their personal preferences would not invalidate the inclusion of anxiety or depression in this list.
The purpose of this list is visibility for anyone who could relate to any atypical mental or physical condition. I decided to include injuries in the list because injuries have capacity to impact daily life, either temporarily or permanently/long term. I personally feel that it would ableist to exclude people like that from this space that I’m trying to curate.
Differently abled is a general and broad term that encompasses things from having a broken hand, to being born without a hand; from being blind to being color blind.
I’m with you on all things except for the fact that you said “credentials” and I know for a fact your brother would not want you to call him a wheel chair user, in fact he prefers the term “wheelie boi”
That reminds me of the time a woman asked my mom if all of her kids were special-needs and then corrected herself by saying “are all of your kids… interesting?” the look on my moms face was priceless
I have autism (along with a host of other neurodivergent illnesses, according to your definition of the term), however I don’t believe things like colour blindness, knee injuries, etc, fall under the category of neurodivergent as they are physical medical conditions, and are not at all related to the neurological functions of the brain. An argument could even be made that depression doesn’t even belong here as it could be considered to be caused by a chemical composition in the brain or by exterior factors in the persons life.
I know the title is neurodivergent/differently abled BL leads so technically the title does cover for the inclusion of other mental and physical illnesses. But after reading the accompanying summary, you would not be expecting to see them in this list.
It also raises questions as to whether a person who suffers from depression or anxiety counts as differently abled and would they want to be counted that way. Also, would a person with an injury count themselves as differently abled or will they eventually heal?
I know this is nitpicking, but again, I have autism. Nitpicking on inaccuracies is kinda what we do.
But hey, besides this minor nitpick, I love that someone has finally made a list like this - been waiting forever to find one - and I can’t wait to check some of them out.