#not saying every neurodivergent(as in all mental illness and developmental things not just autism) person has this experience | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

addictedtostorytelling · 3 years

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Hi! Big damn question for you, so no rush, and I won't take it amiss if you decline. So many of us neurodivergent nerds see aspects of our habits & reactions in Grissom and Sara, as well as signs of PTSD. I'm curious what your take is?

hey, anon!

so i’ll preface my big damn answer here by saying that i understand that headcanons about neurodivergence, developmental and learning disorders, mental illnesses, etc. can be a very personal thing, so i in no way intend to present mine as definitive. these are just my own readings.

i'll also preface my answer by saying that i know that there are different schools of thought about how to define neurodivergence and decide who should be considered neurodivergent.

some people say that the term is exclusive to autistic people and persons with “autism cousin” conditions such as adhd, tourette syndrome, williams syndrome, hydrocephalus, etc. other people say that it is an umbrella term which not only includes persons with developmental and learning disorders such as autism, adhd, dyslexia, dyspraxia, etc. but also those with mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety, and ptsd. still others fall somewhere in the middle, saying that while the term is inclusive not only of autistic people but also persons with developmental disorders not in the “autism family,” it does not include mentally ill people without developmental disorders, on the grounds that mental illness is not inborn and is typically pathologized.

given the lack of consensus within the developmental disorder and mental illness communities regarding these definitions, i am going to frame my discussion more broadly, not in terms of neurodivergence in particular but in terms of anything having to do with developmental or learning disorders, mental illnesses, and/or variations from what might be considered social, learning, attention, and/or mood “norms.”

with those disclaimers in mind, my thoughts are under the “keep reading.”

________

like most tv shows—and particularly those from the early 2000s—csi played very fast and loose with how it depicted developmental disorders and mental health issues.

while it sometimes would allow that certain victims, persons-of-interest, suspects, and perpetrators had specific diagnoses, it generally refrained (perhaps with the exception of identifying warrick’s compulsive gambling) from definitively labeling any of the developmental disorders and/or mental health conditions experienced by its main characters, even though they undoubtedly had them and even though it did depict their symptoms and traits.

furthermore, though occasionally interested in raising awareness for particular conditions and dispelling stereotypes about them (such as in episode 02x07 “caged,” when it attempted to present a nuanced view of autistic savant aaron pratt), like many shows of its era, csi also frequently sensationalized and “monsterified” certain other conditions.

for example, with few exceptions, almost every schizophrenic person on csi, including sara’s mother laura, is depicted as being violent, dangerous, or, at the very least, “volatile.”

all in all, csi gave us a very mixed bag, when it comes to developmental disorder and mental illness rep, insofar as while many of its storylines featuring developmentally disabled and/or mentally ill people were problematic at best, there were also occasional bright spots and instances of nuanced and progressive thinking.

its dealings with the main characters along these lines are similarly split, in terms of hits and misses.

it’s a drag that generally the characters on the show who are most regularly and explicitly acknowledged as being developmentally disabled and/or mentally ill tend to be the bad guys, while if the main characters/good guys display any traits of developmental disorders and/or mental illnesses, their conditions are heavily euphemized and not explicitly labeled as such within the narrative.

(again, warrick’s gambling disorder may be the exception here, though the show doesn’t always consistently depict it as being a pathological condition.)

it also kind of sucks that in terms of how the show depicts mental illness in particular, with the exceptions of greg, hodges, and briefly grissom visiting with patricia alwick in episode 09x03 “art imitates life” and catherine mentioning that she sought counseling after warrick’s death (see episode 11x01 “shockwaves”), none of the main characters is ever shown willingly participating in any kinds of therapies, taking prescribed medications in a healthy way, and/or receiving accommodations.

though sara attends peap counseling in s5, she does so because she is required to and seemingly does not continue with the counseling once she has attended the required number of sessions. nick is also shown to be downright averse to therapy altogether, while grissom’s version of “talking to someone” is going to visit heather but then bristling that she isn’t his therapist when she starts to dig at his underlying issues. warrick pursues medical help for his situational depression in the wake of his divorce from tina enough to obtain prescription sleeping pills but then abuses those pills pretty flagrantly, to the point where his doing so impacts his job (see episodes 08x09 “cockroaches”).

while it makes sense that within the universe of the show, the characters themselves might be opposed to labeling their developmental disorders and mental health issues and/or seeking accommodations and treatments for their conditions, as doing so could negatively impact their careers, in terms of representation, it’s not great that where our heroes are concerned, the show seldom calls a spade a spade.

having grissom self-identify as autistic or nick admit in no uncertain terms that he had ptsd or sara talk about her depression in something other than the vague metaphors she does (“i’ve spent almost my entire life with ghosts”) could do some good toward representation and destigmatization, demonstrating that within the csi universe, developmental disorders and mental health issues are an “equal opportunity” thing and not just the province of “deranged serial killers.”

of course, these complaints notwithstanding, it’s not as if csi actually fails in depicting its main characters dealing with developmental disorders and mental health issues—because, like you say, many, many viewers do see themselves and their developmental disorders and mental illnesses represented through the various members of team graveyard, and many of them view that representation as positive.

acknowledgment problems aside, the portrayals themselves are pretty damn good—recognizable, human, and vivid.

as i've said elsewhere, “sara reads just exactly the way she should for having the background that she does…”

even though they only ~flirt~ with the idea that grissom might be autistic (see episode 02x07 “caged”), people in the know can very easily read him that way. and even if the writers never use the words “depression” or “ptsd” in reference to sara’s s8 arc, it’s clear that that’s what’s going on with her.

so.

with this discussion in mind, here are my readings, which you can take for whatever they’re worth.

gil grissom

as mentioned above, csi does float the idea that grissom may be somewhere on the autism spectrum, but it only does so briefly and never clarifies if he would self-identify that way.

to quote at length from another post:

as for the matter of grissom potentially being on the autism spectrum, obviously, the show only flirts with the possibility. in episode 02x07 “caged,” grissom describes a person of interest in the case he and nick are investigating as “a high-functioning autistic man with superior right-brain ability;” nick then quips that the man sounds a lot like grissom. grissom says nothing in response.

nowhere on the show is grissom ever confirmed to have an autism diagnosis.

nevertheless, he could still be autistic, even if he’s never been diagnosed.

grissom was born in 1956 and grew up primarily during the 60s and 70s, when autism was viewed as a relatively rare childhood disorder.

in fact, in the dsm-1, which provided the diagnostic criteria in use during grissom’s early childhood, autism was understood as a prepubescent “schizophrenic” reaction. while there were a few recognized “autistic savants,” many doctors believed that autism was generally co-morbid with intellectual disability; the children they diagnosed were most often those who displayed very visible autistic behaviors and were extremely withdrawn.

consequently, during grissom’s childhood, autism diagnoses were few and far between—with reported prevalence estimates in the range of 2 to 4 cases per 10,000 children in the us and europe.

less than .05% of children born in california in 1956 were ever diagnosed with autism, so that grissom might have “slipped through the cracks” in his childhood is a strong possibility, and particularly considering that he does not match the diagnostic criteria for autism as the doctors of his day understood it.

remember: autism awareness is a fairly recent thing. temple grandin, nine years grissom’s senior, is currently one of the most famous autistic people in the world, and she displayed what are now understood to be “classic autism behaviors” from her earliest childhood; however, she wasn’t diagnosed until she was in her forties, just because autism wasn’t even really on the radar of the medical community at large until the late 90s.

even in 1995, my younger brother’s pediatrician was unfamiliar with autism. when my parents were given that diagnosis for my brother by a neurologist, the pediatrician had to look it up in the dsm-4 in order to get an idea of what the diagnosis meant.

of course, we don’t know enough about grissom’s early childhood to know which “autistic behaviors,” if any, he presented with as a child. for instance, was he nonverbal beyond infancy? did he noticeably stim? was he sensitive to audio or visual or tactile sensations? was he socially withdrawn? were any of his behaviors something that would have prompted betty to seek a medical opinion about him, or could everything he did be “explained away” by him being shy and/or a coda and/or by having experienced the death of a parent at a young age?

presuming that his behavior then was similar to how it is as an adult, then my guess is that his childhood doctors might not have recognized him as being on the spectrum at all, even if he were so, just because, back then, autism was mainly recognized in cases of extremity. unless he had very “severe impediments” that affected his ability to perform basic life skills and/or attend school, they would have just written him off as a loner with bizarre hobbies.

particularly given that his mother was deaf and that he had grown up using asl, his doctors might even have considered that any social or communicative issues he had were the result of him being a coda, as opposed to him being autistic.

still.

that leaves the question, “is grissom on the spectrum, and, if so, how has being autistic influenced his behavior?”

honestly, since the show never confirms that grissom is autistic, we’re left with a matter of headcanon.

i think that if one is inclined to read grissom as autistic, there is certainly ample evidence in the show that he could be—for example, his liking of order and patterns (see episode 02x07 “caged”), his talent for logical-thinking and problem-solving, his aversion to change, his eidetic memory, his generally low interest in social activities, his communication issues and particularly his problems with verbalizing emotions, his obsessive personality, his intense focus, etc., etc. (even the way that he fidgets with his hands when he’s nervous could be a stim.)

that said, i think it’s also possible to read grissom as being neurotypical, as his behaviors could just as easily be attributed to his high intelligence, coda status, and personal idiosyncrasies as they could be to asd.

grissom himself offers us no real clues, as he doesn’t respond to nick comparing him to an autistic man either one way or another. he could have a secret diagnosis that he chooses not to make public (whether he were one of the rare children diagnosed with autism in the 50s, 60s, or 70s or else, like temple grandin, received a diagnosis later on in life); he could suspect that he is on the spectrum or be self-diagnosed but not have pursued any kind of official diagnosis, for whatever reason; he also may be autistic but completely unaware that he is so; alternatively, he may not be on the spectrum at all. in any case, he doesn’t look down on persons who are autistic and seems to get along well with aaron pratt, the autistic man in question.

my personal read is that grissom is probably somewhere on the spectrum but undiagnosed.

as described above, i think that as a child of the late 50s who didn’t match the common diagnostic criteria for the day and whose biographical details (such as losing his father at a young age and being raised by his deaf single mother) somewhat “mask” the few autistic traits anyone could have potentially recognized in him otherwise, grissom “went under the radar.” while betty may have realized that her son was somehow different than other children in terms of how he played, formed friendships, and viewed the world, i don’t think she would have sought a medical opinion on the matter, and particularly as grissom excelled in school and was generally well-behaved. though she may have worried that he was lonely or felt baffled by some of his hobbies (such as performing roadkill necropsies, as mentioned in episode 08x15 “the theory of everything”), she didn’t have any idea that there might be a diagnosis to explain his behavior, much less that that diagnosis was autism.

that being the case, i don’t think grissom ever received an autism diagnosis in his childhood or adolescence.

and if he didn’t receive a diagnosis in his youth, then it’s probably unlikely he got one in adulthood, either, as the modern diagnostic criteria for autism was not included in the dsm-4 until 1994, when he would have already been thirty-eight years old and well-established in his career, without much motivation to seek out such a label for himself.

grissom is part of what is called “the lost generation of autism,” which includes persons born between the 1950s and 1980s. autistic people from this generation who displayed severe developmental delays were frequently “sent away” from their family homes and institutionalized, while those who showed few or no signs of “cognitive impairment” were not typically recognized as being on the spectrum at all. (and, indeed, the concept of the “spectrum” itself wasn’t fully articulated until most of them were in their thirties, forties, and fifties.)

however, even without a formal diagnosis, some people do still self-identify as autistic. particularly with members of the lost generation, who now in their middle and early old age for the first time in their lives live in a world where autism is widely known about and discussed openly, there has been a trend toward self-discovery and recognizing that many traits which they had simply considered their quirks (or even “character flaws”) are actually part of an autistic identity.

so would grissom be one of those who in his forties or fifties realized that he was autistic?

my answer is yes and no.

while i think that grissom would realize that he could be considered autistic, he doesn’t necessarily self-identify that way. i believe that when he encounters autistic people like aaron pratt, he does recognize what they share in common with him, and he certainly wouldn’t be offended by anyone calling him autistic. i also believe that he has probably consciously considered the prospect of whether or not he were autistic (both because other people, like nick, occasionally suggest to him that he is and because he can recognize the similarities between himself and autistic people he may have met). however, i think that, ultimately, he comes to the conclusion that since he doesn’t typically require accommodations and his sense of self/identity isn’t strongly affected one way or the other by either considering himself autistic or not, at this point in his life, he isn’t going to claim the diagnosis, even on an informal basis.

of course, while i can imagine the “in universe” reasons why grissom might not personally identify as autistic, outside of the universe of the show, i really wish that he had explicitly identified that way because it would have been great representation to have such a beloved (and nuanced!) character be presented as unequivocally autistic. it’s one thing to have nick suggest that he could be (and have the show play the “schrödinger's autism” game), but if grissom himself were to say that he was on the spectrum, his doing so would have been huge, particularly back in 2001, when there was not much to be had in the way of autistic rep on primetime tv (and especially not among leading men).

in any case, regardless of how grissom identifies or how the show identifies him (or fails to), i see a lot of evidence to support reading grissom as autistic across the series, such as:

his predilection for order and great faculty for identifying patterns

some of his more ocd proclivities (jb: “i still can't believe you messed up the crime scene.” gg: [with strain in his voice, obviously trying unsuccessfully to convince himself that such is the case] “her body fell out when i opened the door. it happens. we move on.” jb: “uh-huh. it's gonna bother you all day.” gg: *scowls*—see episode 01x18 “$35k o.b.o”)

his tendency to fidget/stim with his hands, especially when he’s nervous

his ritualistic behaviors, such as inviting a loved one to ride a roller coaster with him every nine years and thirty-four days

his hyperfixations on roy rogers/trigger the horse, insects, baseball, etc., and particularly chess (“at one point, i became so consumed by it that whenever i closed my eyes, i could see the chess pieces moving all around the board. i was obsessed with correcting all my bad moves. i wondered if a game could ever be played without a mistake”)

his low social needs/being happiest with just a few intimate friends and confidantes (primarily sara, catherine, and heather)

his unusual social behaviors, such as walking away mid-sentence, without explanation during conversations whenever he has an epiphany that draws his attention elsewhere

the difficulty he sometimes experiences in verbally expressing his feelings (“i don’t know why i find it so difficult to express my feelings to you”)

the difficulty he sometimes experiences in understanding how his behaviors affect other people (see, for example, episodes 02x15 “burden of proof” and 07x23 “the good, the bad, and the dominatrix”)

his “grissom-vision”/the way he is shown to fixate on the details of people’s expressions and appearances while he is conversing with them, often in lieu of making eye contact (see, for example, during the events of episode 06x21 “rashomama,” how he stares at the bride’s necklace while he is interviewing her rather than looking her right in the face)

his faculty for memorization and eidetic memory

his superior skills of perception and attention

his habit of quoting various books, films, plays, historical figures, etc.

his neophobia/dislike of change

his occasional discomfort and unfamiliarity with his own feelings (as well as the fact that sometimes the only way he can recognize his own feelings is by their somatic/physiological markers, such as in episode 02x05 “scuba doobie-doo,” when he realizes how mad he is based mostly on his pulse jumping from seventy to ninety-five)

his habit of “infodumping” and sharing facts/trivia

his aversion to physical contact/hugs from anyone except for sara, really

his tendency to read up on/research different kinds of social interactions and sexual behaviors in order to better understand them

his passion for his work

his excellent logical reasoning skills

his ability to visualize/recreate events in his mind on a filmic level

his deep understanding of what it is to be considered an outcast and to be judged/left out

his uncritical nature and open-mindedness toward people and behaviors that are “different”

etc., etc., etc.

i don’t think grissom has any other developmental disorders besides autism, though i do think his development was greatly affected by other factors, including his genius-level intelligence, his father’s death when he was nine, and the fact that he grew up as a coda (or “child of a deaf adult��).

as talked about in this post, for as much as grissom’s strong sense of autonomy and independence may relate to his autism, they could additionally link back to the fact that he was the only child of a deaf working mother, who learned how to entertain himself and attend to important household responsibilities at a young age, following the death of his father.

as for potential mental illnesses, i think that grissom experiences three bouts of situational depression throughout the course of the show:

one during the events of s2-s3, when he is losing his hearing, which primarily manifests in him withdrawing from his friends and coworkers and becoming even more extremely introverted than he was before;

another after warrick dies and sara leaves las vegas in s9, which primarily manifests in his mounting disinterest in (and even horror at) his job, his difficulty sleeping and loss of appetite, his trouble focusing (“i've just been a little distracted lately—uh, having a hard time focusing on the details… [that’s not normal] for me”), feelings of hopelessness, and trouble carrying out daily activities;

and the final one during/after his and sara’s s13 divorce, which primarily manifests in him cutting off contact with his friends and family and taking to the seas in order to “atone” for his failings as a husband, living a somewhat reckless lifestyle (and even taking part in illegal ecoterrorist activities), and denying himself of comforts and pleasures he doesn’t feel he “deserves.”

however, these three bouts of situational depression aside, i would not say that grissom is clinically depressed or has major depressive disorder.

as for other potential conditions, while not exactly “mental illnesses,” i would also say that grissom experiences some mental health issues in the form of career burnout during s7 and chronically low self-esteem throughout the duration of the show.

with regards to the latter,

though he may not seem it, gil grissom is in some ways a pretty insecure guy, particularly where it comes to his interpersonal skills and individual sense of worth.

his whole life, he has felt like an outsider (see episode 02x04 “bully for you”), and basically everyone who’s important to him has told him at some point or another that he sucks at basic human interaction.

on the show, these comments are most often played for laughs, but sometimes they’re more biting, such as when catherine digs at grissom for living in his “hermetically-sealed condo” and maintaining no human ties, or nick says that the lab doesn’t need two emotionless criminalists like grissom, or when sara tearfully tells grissom that she wishes she had no feelings, like him.

while grissom is fairly thick-skinned, he seems to have internalized these criticisms regarding his humanity, as is evidenced not only by disparaging statements he makes about himself (“the only time [i] ever touch other people is when [i’m] wearing [my] latex gloves”) but also by his behavior, as he is often sheepish in his interpersonal interactions, takes said criticisms without complaint, and physically retreats from social situations he feels he cannot successfully navigate.

it’s plain to see that he’s scared to be vulnerable with people because he feels he isn’t worthy or fully lovable—which is what heather tells him in episode 02x08 “slaves of las vegas” (“[your greatest fear is] being known”)…

grissom tends to guard himself due to his insecurities. he hides his most human characteristics—his deepest feelings—behind his intelligence, his witty statements, his sometimes cavalier attitude, and even his quirks.

perhaps ironically, he is often most evasive with the people who are dearest to him, seemingly because he fears disappointing them. in some ways, it is easier for him to allow strangers or people he does not know well to see into his soul because he is less invested in how they perceive him.

while it is a very simple thing for him to sit across the table from someone he has just met and hold an existential conversation about life, the universe, and everything, he finds it infinitely more difficult to be vulnerable with those whose approval, love, and acceptance he most deeply craves, particularly early on in his development.

honestly, the man fears rejection perhaps above all else. he could live with the idea that a stranger has found him immediately repulsive, but he would hate it if someone he cared about and has known for a long time were to suddenly reject him after realizing the full extent of his flaws.

it is worth noting that many people with autism report low self-esteem.

overall, i would say that grissom’s experiences with mental illness are much more sporadic and situational than sara’s are overall. however, as we can see from his history, he is somewhat prone to depressive episodes, and he does struggle throughout his life with his concept of self-worth.

sara sidle

i know that some people also read sara as being on the autism spectrum, and while i certainly don’t oppose such interpretations of her character (and am very glad that many people who are themselves on the spectrum identify with her), i personally don’t see her as being autistic.

though she shares many traits with autistic people—and is very similar to grissom, whom, as explained above, i do read as being autistic—i think that the source of those traits in her is ultimately different than it is for autistic people.

while like many autistic people, sara has social deficits, specifically in the form of her being blunt and occasionally confrontational and experiencing difficulty in making and maintaining intimate social relationships, and while she also displays certain other “classic autism” traits like having hyperfixations (obsessing over her work to the point that she is possessed of no real hobbies outside of those which relate to it, such as listening to her police scanner and reading forensics books in her spare time, as per what we learn in episode 01x16 “too tough to die”), excellent logical reasoning skills and attention to detail, some seemingly compulsive aversions to germs and saliva, a habit of infodumping/sharing facts and trivia, etc., in my view, most of these traits and behaviors trace back to how she was raised, as opposed to her having the brain pathophysiology and neuropsychological linkages which are typically considered the physiological mechanisms of autism.

(in other words, i very much believe that all people are a good mix of natural inborn tendencies and temperament and developed tendencies which are the result of their environment and socialization, sara certainly included, and i think that many of her specific traits which people would identify as being “autistic” are ones which she developed in response to how she was raised, whereas in people who are on the spectrum, those traits tend to be inborn or at least developed in response to inborn physiological mechanisms.)

per my view, sara’s social awkwardness and occasionally defiant behavior stem from her growing up in a home where she frequently witnessed intimate partner violence (ipv) and perhaps was even herself a victim of child abuse, losing her biological parents at a young age, and being raised in an unstable foster care environment without ever being adopted or finding a long-term placement.

as an adult, she hyperfixates on her work because her life is fairly empty otherwise, without any family or many friends to keep her occupied.

her logical reasoning skills and attention to detail are simultaneously the products of her genius-level intellect and the fact that, as the child of alcoholics, she was parentified (and therefore had to develop superior skills of attention in order to make sure that she was “keeping all her bases covered”) at a very young age.

her germophobia and aversion to saliva are probably control issues, relating back to her days in foster care, and possibly have some aversive memories attached to them.

she compulsively shares facts and trivia and infodumps because teachers were likely the “safest adults” in her life when she was a child, and being as intelligent as she is, she learned that she could please and elicit praise from them by sharing facts she’d memorized with them; as an adult, she continues this behavior with grissom specifically because she knows it will impress him and it’s a means of flirting.

in my mind, sara doesn’t truly have any developmental disorders in the sense that she is not autistic or adhd and doesn’t have tourette syndrome or fragile x, etc.; however, like so many adults who endured intense childhood trauma (and particularly those who grew up in the foster care system), she has developed some very specific trauma responses which affect her very deeply.

one of the primary ways that sara is affected is in terms of her attachments.

because she experienced the unavailability of normal socializing care and attention from her parents in early childhood and frequently changed caregivers in later childhood while she was in foster care, as an adult, she has difficulties forming healthy social relationships with appropriate levels of relational distance. as she tells grissom in episode 05x12 “snakes” and 05x13 “nesting dolls,” she tends to look for validation in inappropriate places and pursue connections with emotionally unavailable men. she also keeps most of her acquaintances at arm’s length, refusing to disclose any personal information about herself. for a long time, her only truly intimate relationship is with grissom, and even with him, she refrains from talking about her past or letting him know about any of her issues for the first seven years that she knows him. she is at turns alternately standoffish and clingy and on a very basic level she has trouble forming connections.

another one of the primary ways sara is affected by her trauma responses—the primary way, maybe—is in terms of her lifelong mental illness.

while the show no more labels her mental illnesses than it does anyone else’s, i will say that i think the narrative is much less coy about presenting sara’s mental health issues than perhaps anyone else’s.

even without the diagnoses being spoken aloud, the symptoms she presents suggest fairly strongly that she has major depressive disorder, anxiety, and complex post-traumatic stress disorder—all of which conditions are consistent with her history as someone who grew up in an abusive household and lacked secure attachments during her formative years and who has undergone significant trauma both in childhood and as an adult.

just on a statistical level, that sara would have depression is unsurprising.

baby girl has multiple genetic and situational risk factors, including:

having a schizophrenic mother

having parents who were alcoholics

having parents who were possibly/probably depressed

experiencing clinically significant childhood trauma

regularly witnessing intimate partner violence (ipv) between her parents in her childhood home

and, of course, that’s to say nothing of her actual experiences themselves, beyond the stats and the punnett squares—having a mother who was an untreated paranoid schizophrenic (see episodes 11x05 “house of hoarders,” 13x15 “forget me not,” 13x21 “dune and gloom,” and 15x12 “dead woods”), witnessing ipv between her parents, possibly herself being a victim of child abuse (the show never clarifies whether she was or not), being in the home at the time when her mother murdered her father (see episode 05x13 “nesting dolls”), being removed from her family home and placed into foster care, visiting her mother in a psychiatric jail ward (see episode 05x21 “committed”), having her mother’s parental rights severed, never subsequently being adopted out of foster care, switching placements multiple times (see episode 05x10 “no humans involved”), being emancipated out of the system at a young age, etc., etc.

her life has been extremely rough from the get-go, so i tend to think she’s been experiencing depression since she was a child.

whether or not she ever attends therapy for her depression prior to her mandatory peap counseling in s5, the show never tells us. the same goes for whether or not she ever takes any kind of medication.

i tend to believe she was probably compelled to attend some form of counseling as a child while in the foster care system—her “harpooned whale” story from episode 05x21 “committed” hints at the possibility that such was the case, at least for a time—however, once she became emancipated, she opted to stop going. i find it less likely that she was ever medicated for depression, as ssris were still relatively uncommon in the late 70s and early 80s and were not yet widely available for children and adolescents. as an adult, i think she likely avoided medication because she didn’t want to have to disclose her personal and/or medical history at work and didn’t want it showing up in her drug tests.

while most police departments and crime labs allow for personnel to take prescribed antidepressants while performing their job duties, there is a prevalent stigma in law enforcement culture surrounding the use of such medications, meaning that sara might worry that if she were to take medications to treat her depression, her doing so might negatively affect her assignments, career advancement opportunities, and reputation within the department, were that information ever to become known by her coworkers and superiors.

on the show, evidence of sara’s depression is visible in

her frequent bouts of sadness and melancholy (particularly during s4-s5 and later on in s8),

tearfulness,

general pessimistic or at least starkly realistic outlook on life,

occasional angry outbursts and expressions of frustration,

loss of interest or pleasure in most or all normal activities,

chronic insomnia,

occasional anxiety and restlessness,

lack of passions or interests outside of those which directly relate to her work,

extreme social isolation,

and deep-seated feelings of unlovability and worthlessness.

these symptoms are most prevalent during the course of her s4-s5 and s8 depression storylines; however, i would argue that with the exception of her “i'm happy and in love” period between s6 and s7, they’re also (at least to some degree) a constant thing with her throughout the course of the series—i.e., that she is chronically depressed for most of her time on the show.

for example, one of the first things we learn about sara back in s1 is that she is an insomniac—a trait which is originally played for laughs (such as in episode 01x15 “table stakes”) but which upon closer inspection suggests that sara is not entirely well, even at that early point in her development. the same goes for her restlessness and the fact that she has few diversions; as an otherwise healthy twenty-nine year-old woman living in a city renowned for recreation, her choice to spend most of her time off from work home alone, reading forensics textbooks and listening to a police scanner, hints at an underlying unwellness.

of course, another interesting thing about sara’s depression is that she tends to be fairly “high-functioning” with it, despite its severity. while at the end of s4 and in the middle of s8, she does eventually “hit the wall” and get to the point where she can no longer fulfill the duties of her job without her depression impacting her performance, throughout most of the series, she is so adept at masking her symptoms and “working through the pain” that few of her coworkers realize just how bad off she is.

as i talk about in this post,

lots of folks think that depression looks a certain way: like an unkempt person in sweatpants curled in a ball on the couch, unable to get up and go to work or participate in family activities. to many, depression means “being sad all of the time.” they believe the primary symptoms are crying often and sleeping too much. the person who has depression is supposed to be a wreck pretty much 24/7.

of course, depression is a spectrum, and for some people on the depression spectrum, the experiences described above are the reality: they are debilitated, unable to hold down jobs, maintain basic hygiene, get out of bed, and/or commit to relationships.

however, for other people with depression, the disorder manifests differently.

for these folks, their depressive disorder doesn’t impede their performance of responsibilities such as work and home duties (or at least not outwardly). they still have depression symptoms, such as persistent sad/anxious/empty moods, feelings of hopelessness, loss of pleasure in daily activities, fatigue, headaches and body pains, and even suicidal ideation, but they are nevertheless able to achieve at a high level in their personal and professional lives, at least for a while.

sara is one of these so-called “high-functioning depressives.”

make no mistake: sara is depressed (and likely also has a form of cptsd).

but she is able to get up to her alarm, groom herself, dress in professional clothes, and perform well at a challenging and competitive job where she is constantly being evaluated. she completes necessary life tasks both on time and to the required standards for an adult of her age and life position: she pays her bills, buys groceries, keeps her appointments, cares for house plants, and gets through most days without any kind of breakdown or incident—and all while maintaining a long-term, committed romantic relationship with a man she loves.

to the outside observer, she generally seems like a put-together and “with it” person. she’s not like what you see in cymbalta commercials.

—and because that is the case, most people, including many of the people closest to her, have no idea that she’s struggling.

sure, after the events of episodes 07x24 “living doll” and 08x01 “dead doll,” her friends at the lab might notice that at times she seems skittish or has a thousand-yard stare, but who, having gone through what she did, wouldn’t occasionally experience an “off” moment? and, besides, she never seems to stay “faraway” for long; she always bounces back, cracking a smile and joking right afterward (see, for example, her conversation with greg in episode 08x03 “go to hell”).

she still seems like sara—who has always had a bit of an edge, after all.

only upon close inspection would one notice any “cracks in her veneer,” and, even then, those cracks might be hard to place.

along with her depression, i believe sara also has an anxiety disorder, evident in how high-strung she is and her high level of reactivity to stressors, though since many of its symptoms overlap with both her depression and ptsd, i'll refer to it mainly within the context of the latter.

ptsd is one of the csi writers’ favorite mental illnesses to depict.

by my count, sara, nick, greg, and morgan all experience ptsd to varying degrees throughout the series.

however, sara’s ptsd is somewhat unique in that hers is complex-ptsd which she develops in response to prolonged exposure to trauma throughout her childhood and adolescence, while many of the other characters on the show develop ptsd in response to singular traumatic events (such as kidnappings, assaults, and shootings) they experience as adults.

(note: nick may also have cptsd, given his history of having been sexually abused as a child, in addition to all of the traumatic events—such as defenestration, being held at gunpoint, being buried alive, having his best friend be killed in the line of duty, etc.—he endures as an adult.)

much as is the case with her depression, i think sara comes onto the show already having developed her cptsd—and, indeed, probably having had it since childhood.

sara’s cptsd is pretty much textbook. like many adults with cptsd, she has “experienced prolonged interpersonal traumatization beginning in childhood… as well as, in adulthood. these early injuries interrupt[ed her] development of a robust sense of self and of others. because physical and emotional pain or neglect was often inflicted by attachment figures such as caregivers… [she developed] a sense that they are fundamentally flawed and that others cannot be relied upon. this [sense] [became] a pervasive way of relating to others in [her] adult life, described as insecure attachment.”

evidence of her cptsd is visible in her

occasional angry outbursts

specific set of triggers, which include working cases which involve ipv (particularly of the husband-on-wife variety), working cases which involve foster children, being yelled at by men or being the target of male aggression, psychiatric facilities, etc.

low self-esteem

intense feelings of shame about her traumatic history (which prevent her from talking to anyone about her past for the first five years she is in vegas)

social isolation and difficulty in achieving social intimacy in her relationships

poor impulse control and judgment (which not only contribute to her unhealthy drinking behaviors during s4 but also some of the recklessness we see in her throughout s3 to s5, such as when she confronts a potentially armed suspect without police backup in episode 03x22 “play with fire” and when she fails to evacuate a scene in a timely manner when faced with a bomb threat in episode 05x02 “down the drain”)

chronic insomnia and disrupted sleep patterns (“if i needed someone to stay up for three straight days, i'd ask sara”)

fragmented and disconnected presentation of her autobiographical narrative to others (see, for example, when she “fudges the truth” to grissom in episode 03x14 “one hit wonder,” allowing him to believe that she is telling a story about her biological mother and brother, when in truth she is talking about foster family)

problems with relationship boundaries (particularly with grissom during the early seasons of the show but also in terms of the issues with authority she displays in her relationships with catherine and ecklie, such as in episode 05x13 “nesting dolls”)

general distrustfulness

amnesia regarding certain aspects of her trauma (“i don’t remember the woman who took me to foster care. i can’t remember her name—which is strange, you know, ‘cause i couldn’t let go of her hand”)

difficulties communicating her needs, particularly when she is in distress or needs help

extreme loneliness and feelings of unlovability

intrusive memories, dissociative episodes, and flashbacks to her trauma (such as in episode 05x13 “nesting dolls,” when she has audio—and perhaps visual—flashbacks to her father beating her mother as she is looking through hospital case files detailing instances of ipv)

nightmares (see episode 01x10 “sex, lies, & larvae”)

a strong startle reflex

anger and rage (“i want to know why you’re so angry”)

self-destructive tendencies (such as taking actions that could/should result in her being fired, like driving drunk or being insubordinate to her boss’s boss)

anxiety in the presence of triggers or when pressed to talk about her past

having a very strong “flight reflex” (which is part of what prompts her to leave las vegas in episode 08x07 “goodbye & good luck”)

etc., etc., etc.

unfortunately for sara, her trauma is not all relegated to her past—because she also experiences more than her fair share of traumatic events as an adult.

coming into contact with abusers and killers through her job often triggers her, and being held at shiv-point by adam trent certainly does her no favors in that regard (see episode 05x21 “committed”), either; the same goes for being caught up in the lab explosion (see episode 03x22 “play with fire”). however, her worst and most traumatizing on-the-job experience—and the one that deals her the most psychic damage in the long run—is being kidnapped and nearly killed by natalie davis the miniature killer and then left for dead by her in the mojave desert (see episodes 07x24 “living doll” and 08x01 “dead doll”).

being made to feel so helpless and confront her own mortality exacerbates many of her preexisting mental and emotional injuries from childhood and causes her to feel deeply unsafe. as her mental state deteriorates, she becomes increasingly unable to perform the functions of her job, and her relationship with grissom suffers, until finally for his sake she decides to leave las vegas and seek healing elsewhere.

getting away from las vegas—the landscape of which has become one giant trigger for her, following her ordeal—helps sara to begin to process her trauma and recuperate therefrom, as does reconnecting with her mother and getting answers about her past in a way she never has before. time and distance also work wonders. however, it isn’t until she reunites with grissom and they marry that she seems to fully find her footing once more.

one would hope that she also gets some therapy while she’s away from sin city, though of course the show never clarifies if she does.

in an ideal world, sara should have always been in therapy. peap should not have been a “one-and-done” thing for her. now.

on top of all the mental illnesses sara actually has, her character is also greatly influenced by a mental illness that she fears she could have.

given that schizophrenia can be genetic and that it tends to most frequently manifest in one’s mid- to late twenties, i firmly believe that sara grows up terrified that she is going to develop her mother’s condition, and that fear is still very much in play for her throughout her first several years on the show (see her “murder gene” conversation with grissom from episode 05x13 “nesting dolls”).

only after she is well into her thirties and out of the “usual window of opportunity” for initial onset does that anxiety probably subside in her—and, even then, she likely still experiences occasional instances of “what if i have the late-onset variety?” panic whenever she feels as if she is out of control of herself (such as during the events of episode 13x15 “forget me not,” which happen when she is past forty).

as for the matter of sara’s potential alcoholism, the show somewhat waffles. while her parents were both themselves alcoholics (and the condition often runs in families) and while she does display symptoms of alcohol abuse, exhibiting “problem drinking behaviors” like driving under the influence and coming to work while intoxicated, lying about her alcohol consumption, routinely drinking alone, etc., sara’s story arc in s5 seems to indicate that she can stop drinking at will and does so the second grissom confronts her about her issues in episode 05x13 “nesting dolls.” though she does resume drinking during her divorce in s13—and also abusing sleeping pills at the same time—that problem is again short-lived and seems to resolve itself once db, nick, and greg confront her about her reckless behavior. it is therefore open to interpretation as to whether or not sara actually has alcohol use disorder, in the more clinical sense of the term.

i tend to think she isn’t alcohol-dependent (because she can stop when she wants to) but that she does use alcohol as an unhealthy coping mechanism and exhibit problem drinking behaviors when she does so.

conclusion

so those are my readings: i view grissom as being on the autism spectrum and having occasional bouts of situational depression; i view sara as having depression, anxiety, cptsd, and an occasional drinking problem.

i'll close by saying that for as much as i wish csi would have been more up front in addressing its characters’ developmental disorders and mental illnesses, there is a lot i like about the way they depicted grissom and sara’s, in particular.

as i talk about in this post,

for as painful as the gsr storyline is in s8, can i just say that i really appreciate that it doesn’t try to pretend that love magically cures depression?

sara loves grissom. grissom loves sara.

sara is depressed, to the point where the cinematography on the show even reflects that she is so, framing her in darkness whenever she’s alone on the screen (see episode 08x07 “goodbye and good luck”). though sara once loved her job, it has begun to drain her, and she no longer enjoys doing things that were previously really fulfilling for her. she doesn’t like working swing, she doesn’t like training ronnie, she misses her friends on graveyard, she is exhausted, haunted, battle-weary, scared, angry, and sad.

sara often lights up when she is with grissom (see episodes 08x02 “a la cart” and 08x04 “the case of the cross-dressing carp”), but it is clear that being with grissom isn’t a cure-all or a “fix” for what sara feels (see episode 08x06 “who and what”). at the end of the day, sara is a person with depression, and she is a person who is in love, and those two aspects of her person overlap, but they are ultimately separate from each other.

i am similarly appreciative of how deliberate tptb were about crafting grissom’s depression and professional burnout storyline in s9. though difficult to watch—there really aren’t many bright points in s9 until grissom reunites with sara in costa rica in episode 09x10 “one to go”—grissom’s slow descent into darkness is well-rendered and not either rushed or overblown.

in general, grissom and sara are two of the richest, most well-written characters i've ever had the pleasure to watch on television, and the fact that both of them fall outside of developmental and mental health “norms” is really something remarkable, considering that they are the leading man and lady on a primetime mega-hit.

whether or not one agrees with my assessment that grissom is actually on the autism spectrum, the fact that he is at the very least heavily coded as being autistic, to the point where the possibility is explicitly mentioned on the show (see episode 02x07 “caged”), is fairly groundbreaking. ditto for sara’s mental illness taking center stage in several prominent arcs.

that these two characters can be shown to be highly-skilled professionals, romantic leads, and three-dimensional figures whose divergent traits are not just ancillary to their roles but essential to them is wonderful—and makes for some great storytelling.

anyway, as stated at the outset of this answer, i am highly aware that mine are not the only interpretations possible for these characters, so if you parse things differently, don’t mind me.

thank you for the question! feel welcome to send another any time.

#answered #anon #asks: csi #let's talk shop #**#my meta #meta: csi #meta: grissom #meta: sara #csi #csi cbs #gil grissom #sara sidle #csiverse

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johannas-motivational-insults · 5 years

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Adora might be autistic too

Alright, most people in the SPOP fandom agree that Entrapta is autistic, as her coding is extremely obvious. However, some of us also believe that our beloved protagonist Adora is on the spectrum as well. She comes off as quite the aspie, and while Asperger’s is no longer a diagnosis in the DSM-V (but is in other manuals), it falls under the blanket diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and its diagnostic criteria is still useful in analyzing people for signs of the disorder. In analyzing Adora’s character I will refer somewhat to both disorders, with the understanding that Asperger’s is a specific manifestation of ASD.

I would like to preface this by saying this is a headcanon and people are free to disagree with me. Some of these characteristics I’m going to bring up could also manifest because of her very sheltered upbringing in a cult-like atmosphere or mental illnesses such as anxiety and complex PTSD (both of which she arguably has). I am autistic myself, so obviously I am inclined to interpret these symptoms this way, but to each their own. It’s also worth noting that Adora has a lot of symptoms that cross over with AD(H)D, a cousin disorder to ASD, and it’s totally possible she has both.

In any case, there is now enough evidence hinting at Adora’s neurodivergence (especially now that the Rebel Princess Guide has been released) that I feel the need to explain this theory in detail instead of just occasionally mentioning it. So here goes...

She’s naive/easily manipulated

This one doesn’t really need explaining, we’ve all seen it. Adora assumes people are telling the truth because why would anyone lie to her? That is such a relatable spectrum feel. She was handily brainwashed by Shadow Weaver in the Horde, while some of the others didn’t seem to swallow the propaganda so easily. This is of course partly because of the special attention and affection Adora got from Shadow Weaver, but she had to be vulnerable to manipulation in the first place for it to work.

Later, she trusts Huntara easily in the Crimson Waste despite Bow and Glimmer’s warnings about her questionable character. Adora happily follows her into a trap even once Bow and Glimmer tell her they're going the wrong way, reasoning it’s probably a shortcut rather than reevaluating her misplaced trust. This can be partly explained by how she‘s gay af for Huntara, but still.

(Interestingly, the episode cuts straight from this moment to the obviously autistic Entrapta going against her own friend's advice and refusing to give up on the portal machine despite the obvious warning sign of Hordak’s violent dismissal. Parallels, much?)

Her difficulty understanding other points of view

A lot of Adora’s conflict with Catra is predicated on misunderstandings, and she has a hard time understanding the effects her actions have on other people, Catra in particular. For instance, she misunderstands Catra talking about ruling the Horde together as being purely about power, while Catra’s actual goals are safety and Adora’s companionship. That miscommunication is not just Adora’s fault, but it illustrates that she has difficulty understanding other people’s needs and motives without being explicitly told.

This isn’t just a problem with Catra, either. In general Adora has a difficult time understanding other’s motives and feelings. For instance, she doesn’t understand Glimmer’s insecurity over Bow’s friendship with Perfuma at Princess Prom, and she can’t fathom why Entrapta would choose to work for an evil faction, going so far as to assume she must have been brainwashed into it. This is because, just like with Catra, she doesn’t understand that some people’s priorities are not the same as hers.

Autistic kids tend to reach developmental milestones at different times than neurotypicals, sometimes being way ahead and other times falling behind. One such marker that is usually slower to develop and often stays impaired is theory of mind, our ability to a) understand that other people have different perspectives and b) understand those perspectives. Adora’s difficulties being able to put herself in someone else’s shoes definitely lines up with this symptom.

She’s clumsy

For someone so athletic, Adora sure lacks coordination. This is a commonly cited symptom of people with Asperger’s, though it shows up in people with other forms of ASD too. In general, autistic people often have difficulty with fine and/or gross motor skills, and this can lead to being accident and injury prone. According to Catra in 3x05, Adora bumps her head a lot. That may have just been a callback to 1x01, but either way clumsiness has been part of her characterization since the beginning, one of her many loveable, adorkable qualities.

Her lack of social and self awareness

Adora can be painfully oblivious to her own inappropriate behavior. There’s several examples of this throughout the series, one of the more costly ones coming at Princess Prom. Shocked by Frosta’s youth, Adora fails to register how maybe this (in front of Frosta, with all eyes on her) is not the time to remark on it. She immediately realizes this was the wrong thing to say (or at least not something she should shout), but that small delay causes both her and Glimmer a lot of embarrassment.

Part of the issue here is that she loses control of her volume, which in itself is a common problem for those of us on the spectrum. This isn’t the only time we see her have this problem, either, and it’s amplified (tee hee) when she’s drunk/infected.

More generally, one of the funniest examples of Adora’s poor social awareness comes when she barges into Huntara’s flirtation with the bartender in the Crimson Waste. She’s so focused on her task of recruiting Huntara that it doesn’t even occur to her that this is an intimate moment and intruding would be rude.

In the Rebel Princess Guide Adora also says she wishes Queen Angella would let her make some adjustments to the uniforms of the Bright Moon guards, which implies she tried to make these suggestions already. Maybe she figured She-Ra could suggest anything, but as both a newcomer and a royal subject that’s a bit of a faux pas. Chances are, that went right over Adora’s head.

She can’t read a room to save her life (literally)

This is another, more specific aspect of social awareness. Adora has difficulty picking up on the implicit rules (social norms) when she enters unfamiliar situations, and has a tendency to step on toes because of it. She also doesn’t understand when her friends try to nonverbally communicate what she’s doing wrong, and nonverbal communication deficits and problems with social awareness and insight are two major symptoms of ASD. One specifically listed example is “difficulties adjusting behavior to suit social contexts”, including:

Lack of response to contextual cues (e.g. social cues from others indicating a change in behavior is implicitly requested)

Unaware of social conventions/appropriate social behavior; asks socially inappropriate questions or makes socially inappropriate statements

Here’s a couple specific example of times where Adora misses or misunderstands nonverbal cues to change her behavior:

At her first Rebellion meeting she doesn’t realize that maybe she shouldn’t sit in the special-looking chair, and doesn’t clue in that that’s why everyone is freaking out.

In the Crimson Waste, Glimmer responds to the growling bar patrons surrounding them by suggesting that maybe these aren’t the kind of people they should be asking for help, but Adora persists. She jumps up on the bar and makes a speech trying to get directions (which is socially inappropriate for the context as well as dangerous), somehow missing all the scowls from the patrons as well as Bow and Glimmer’s wild gesturing.

Panic over unfamiliar social situations

Adora’s anxiety about going to Princess Prom could be attributed to many things, not just a spectrum disorder. Her obvious anxiety, for one, though to be fair there’s a high comorbidity between the two disorders. In any case, it seems the unfamiliarity of the situation is a sticking point for Adora in particular, while Bow and Glimmer are nothing but excited for their first ball.

Adora’s anxiety seems to stem mostly from being overwhelmed by the prospect of entering a new social situation with a whole bunch of unfamiliar rules to remember. She’s still learning behavioral norms outside of the Horde, and this is a huge jump up in terms of difficulty for her fledgling social skills.

To cope with her stress she goes overboard trying to prepare by making a conspiracy board of sorts, flash cards, and an obstacle course. And at the ball itself, it seems like she’s even rehearsed how to behave.

This probably isn’t only relatable to autistics, but it’s very relatable to us. Creating and rehearsing behavioral scripts is a common strategy to avoid embarrassing ourselves in public. Unfortunately, as we saw above, this works for about five seconds before Adora botches the whole thing by commenting on Frosta’s age.

Extreme stress over details

In general, Adora is a very anxious, perfectionistic person who hyperfixates on details, a very autistic trait. As mentioned above, this is wonderfully illustrated by her overpreparation for Princess Prom. She’s broken down the overwhelming list of rules in the invite into categories to make it more manageable, gone into detail categorizing people’s relationships to each other, and learned trivia about the guests in order to feel more prepared. Yet, somehow she missed the important fact that the hostess is only eleven years old.

Unfortunately this hangup doen’t only affect her, but also her friends and allies. The overarching theme in “Roll With It” is how debilitating Adora’s anxiety and perfectionism can be. Her eye for detail and ability to see flaws in plans is actually very valuable, but she gets so hung up on every possible thing that could go wrong that she can’t accept imperfect solutions with calculated risks.

Her propensity to be overwhelmed by too much information (like with the Princess Prom invite) shows up here too. Adora grows more and more frustrated and overwhelmed as more princesses join the planning session, adding more variables to deal with and more people to manage. She begins lashing out and shooting down every possible solution that doesn’t satisfy her need for perfection immediately. Her behavior looks like it may be headed for a meltdown until it culminates in an epic rant revealing all her anxiety and how it ties into her insecurities about her own imperfection.

Thankfully her friends are able to reassure her that she has support and doesn’t have to be perfect, but it’s an ongoing battle, one we already saw her struggle with in “Flowers for She-Ra” and “The Battle of Bright Moon”. It’s a strong tenet of Adora’s personality that is proving difficult to shake.

What she misses about the Horde

The recently published Rebel Princess Guide contains a list by Adora of things she misses about the Horde, and this list screams neurodivergent. I’ll go through it point by point, since there’s a lot to unpack here.

THINGS I MISS ABOUT THE HORDE

1. I miss the rigid schedule. It never changed, and I always knew what to expect.

Ritualistic behavior and an insistence on sameness are often seen in individuals with ASD. In fact, it’s a major symptom. Many of us have diifficulty adjusting to changing schedules, changes in diet, or even minor changes in our environment (such as placement of objects, boy do I have stories there). We need warning when things are going to change, and even if we know it’s coming it’s still a struggle to adjust.

2. I miss the constant sound of machines and whirring. In Bright Moon, there’s always music playing, or people laughing, and birds singing. It’s nice but it makes it hard to focus!

Autistic brains process sensory information differently from neurotypicals, that’s basically our disorder at its core. Over or under reactions to sensory input are common and in fact considered a major symptom, and this entry of Adora’s specifically refers to difficulties with sensory filtering. We have a hard time filtering out information that’s irrelevant to our current task, which makes us easily distractable.

3. Believe it or not, I miss my hard cot in the barracks. My bed in the castle is way too soft!

This ties into both the insistence on sameness and sensory issues.

4. Catra… sometimes.

This isn’t autistic, it’s just gay.

Speaking of which...

She’s gay

Adora's relationship with Catra has always been queer-coded, but any doubts about her sexuality were dispelled in season 3 by the way she fawns over Huntara like a baby gay over her gym teacher. Her obvious queerness might seem unrelated to the topic of autism, but those of us within the community can attest there’s probably just as many queer people among us as there are cishets. It’s so notable that there has been quite a bit of scientific research confirming people with ASD are more likely to be LGBT and gender atypical and exploring the cause of this link.

(This needs no proving at this point, but enjoy these gifs anyway...)

In conclusion

Overall, there’s a lot of hints and circumstantial evidence suggesting Adora could have ASD. Was this the creators’ intent? Hard to say. Adora is the protagonist and one of the most developed characters, so she’s definitely not a cardboard cutout or checklist for ASD symptoms (compare that to Entrapta, a secondary character whose behaviors can often easily be attributed to autism). It’s totally possible the creators just characterized her as naive and awkward and obsessive without realizing the implications of that cluster of traits together.

Regardless of authorial intent, it’s perfectly valid to look at Adora and see representation of the ASD community. The groundwork is there. And if someone else looks and doesn’t see it, or sees something else causing this behavior, that is also fair. No one is forcing anyone to accept this headcanon (or at least they shouldn’t be), but in return please don’t disparage it. Even if she is not autistic Adora is definitely autistic-coded, and we could use some more heros with the disorder, given how we’re mostly relegated to being villains and anti-heroes (not that there’s anything wrong with us filling those roles sometimes, but a little variety would be nice).

Adora is often referred to as a dumbass, but she’s actually quite intelligent, just sometimes slow to understand how she should act and how people feel. Still, she tries her hardest, just as she does with everything else. Adora is heroic and compassionate, even if she sometimes struggles to understand others. When autistic-coded characters are so commonly portrayed as cold and unforgiving, Adora is a sorely needed exception.

#spop #she-ra #she ra #meta #autistic adora #adora #autism #asd #asperger's #actuallyautistic

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adhdbuzz · 4 years

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(Quick note - I have copied this over from my main blog - this is my content...)

ADHD, Neurodivergence, Identity…

I want to start blogging about some of my experiences with mental illness and neurodivergence. Two words, that before this year, I would never of used in relation to myself.

One of the most fascinating and somewhat crippling aspects of learning you are neurodivergent, is becoming so hyperaware of your thoughts, actions, personality, wondering what’s you and what’s your diagnosis, (or what you are imagining/projecting because of your diagnosis). I likely drive my friends mad talking or joking about it, but it’s hard to articulate the complete upheaval that learning this about yourself creates. Suddenly your entire history and personhood is re-defined. You have to change your narrative. I spent most of my teenagehood and childhood feeling removed/estranged from the people and world around me. More than feeling an ‘outcast,’ I felt myself an alien. I believed (and felt that others believed), that I was incredibly lazy and did not have the drive to puruse my passions and potential. This left such a hole in my heart and self-confidence. Imagine that you have this great love for something - or many things, but can’t even motivate yourself to take one single step toward it. You lose interest in every hobby you’ve ever taken up and you don’t understand why you can’t just do the thing. It seems easy for everyone else? What am I missing? So you compensate. Suddenly (and very briefly), you are really into note-taking and study blogs and watching countless hours of videos on how to get organised and ‘change your life’ and you imagine what kind of person you could become. Or you start every new year or semester with the goal to just stay on top of things, just remember, just write it down - everyone else does it? Why can’t you? Inevitably, that falls away.

What happens when you can’t maintain this? When suddenly those three assignments are due, you’ve dropped out of your class/hobby, you’ve missed another opportunity, avoided another goal and heard another person tell you, ‘you just need to get organised…’ ‘ you’ve got so much potential, you just need to apply yourself!’ “I don’t understand how you forgot/didn’t do the thing/didn’t write it down!”

I don’t think I can ever effectively describe the impact that this has had on me. There is something so devastating in not understanding there is something different about your brain during the really sensitive, formative years of your life. Because you end up spending so much time trying to work out why you are not like everyone else, why you struggle with things that most people find easy, why it is a constant battle to stay afloat, to have people angry with you/criticising you for something that you both feel should be in your control, but neurologically isn’t.

ADHD is so severly misunderstood. It’s invisible and it is crippling. The image of the little boy in class who can’t sit still or stop talking is such a prevalent and damaging stereotype. Before I got my diagnosis and before I even had looked into ADHD, I spent hours researching what could be wrong with me and doing online ‘tests’. These ranged from anxiety, to depression, Bipolar, PMDD and Personality Disorders, (strangely enough, ADHD often exists alongside other mental illnesses and I was diagnosed with co-morbidities…) But I think this gives a degree of context to what undiagnosed ADHD feels like, because it’s not someone who wont shut up, or sit still. To me it feels like everyone else got a manual on how to be a person and I didn’t. Often times, it’s the depressed, anxious, struggling teenager or young adult, who feels so inadequate, who feels like an alien, who can’t even trust their own passions or interests. Who is in a constant battle to meet the expectations of themselves and those around them. Who’s socially awkward or uncomfortable, who’s disocciated, who can’t follow a conversation, or instructions, who suffers in loud spaces, who struggles with small talk, strangers, shopping centres, keeping themselves and their space clean, uni work, school work, chores, family, friendships, relationships, their identity, their passions, there interests, their personality, regualating their emotions

ADHD is so exhausting, because it’s a constant battle to just meet the base line. Every thing you do from the moment you get up, til the moment you are asleep (and even then) is impacted by it.

Say you have an assignment, and a couple of chores to do on one day. Not a big deal right? Ok so you set an alarm for 8am, except your brain didn’t turn off until 4am the night before, so you get up at mid day, you go to put the washing in, but you forgot to turn on yesterdays load, so you do that first, you go to make a morning coffee, you check the time, it’s 12.30 - where did half an hour go? I just got up?! (Time-blindness). You make your coffee and drink it while checking social media, which sucks you in, because your dopamine depleted brain craves stimuli! You check the time, its 1pm, you tell yourself you’ll scroll for ten more minutes, and that ten minute excuse repeats a few times. It’s 1.30 and now your angry, because why didn’t you have the self control! (Hint: you have a disordered executive function). You put your mug on the sink, promising you’ll come back to it later. You go back to the laundry, you realise you forgot to turn the dryer on. You go to do your assignment, you clear your desk, open laptop, but now you don’t know where to start - you can’t naturally prioritise tasks, or break down the individual steps that need to be done in order to complete an assignment, you must do this with the ‘skills’ you have actively had to learn from a coach, internet etc. It’s like trying to bake a cake with no measuring cups, or recipe! So now you are looking at the assessment outline, and what you’ve worked on already, and trying to close last nights 200 tabs of hyperfixation. You read the outline 5 times without actually reading it, on the 6th you try really hard, you’re fidgeting in your chair, it’s an almost physical pain having to sit there and read it. Your eyes feel glazy, there’s too many words and they look like a big smudge on the page. You quickly check messages (dopamine hit), you come back to the outline. Its been half an hour, you still haven’t started. It’s about 2pm, you havent had lunch or breakfast. You go make a tea and come back. Maybe you need backround music? You spend another 20 minutes finding the right playlist, except its not right because it’s either too stimulating or not stimulating enough. You find another playlist, or you go down the rabbit whole of some movie soundtrack you’ve been meaning to look at. It’s 2.45. The washing! You go back and finally get yesterdays load in the dryer and start the load you meant to do today. Might as well make another tea now that I’m up. Might as well check Facebook now I’ve been interrupted. I’ll start at 3.30. 3.30 rolls around, your sibling gets home from school. Noise, talking, lunchbox rattling, bags being unpacked. Distraction. The noise is painful, your executive function (the impaired part of the ADHD brain) is also responsible for emotional regulation. Suddenly you are so fiercly angry at the noise being made in the rest of the house. It’s so over stimulating it feels like sandpaper on your brain and ears, you feel sick to your stomach with rage, you are crying, sobbing. All because people in the other room are talking. You lay on your bed trying to calm the overwhelm and increasing stress at not having done your assignment. It’s 4pm. Mum asks why you left your mug out, or didn’t do the dishes (you were too busy thinking about doing the washing!) She notes the machine still going and tells you that you wont have time to put it in the dryer tonight, you’ll have to do it tomorrow. But you need those clothes for tomorrow, you’re having breakfast with a friend. You’ll have to reschedule. You message your friend, and repeat the standard script “god I am so sorry, I’m such a mess, can we do later in the morning? I’ve got to do chores…” they can’t reschedule, you cancel. You sit back down with the assignment. You fidget. It feels like a physical pain to have to sit there and force yourself to do it. You’ll do it tomorrow. You pack up, and get ready for bed, removing the pile on your bed back to your desk. Your sheets are unmade, it’s uncomfortable and you feel agitated. You’ve forgotten to brush your teeth, or clean your face. You scroll online, or hyperfocus on a new hobby, project, idea, that wont interest you tomorrow, until 3am. You set your alarm for 8am…

This is just one small example and snapshot of ADHD and the impact of Executive Dysfunction. Here are a couple of examples/descriptions of how it feels from the ADHD subreddit.

“Schrodinger’s ADHD: Everything is interesting and boring at the same time. Every subject, every hobby.”

‘The Two ADHD Moods: I can’t do it / I can’t stop doing it. The two types of ADHD time: Now / Not Now The two ADHD memory modes: I literally can not recall the words that just came out of my mouth / I can recite the opening paragraph of every single magic tree house book.’

I also want to talk Neurodivergence, as this is another misconception when it comes to ADHD. In the way that Autism, Tourettes, Dyscalculia, Dysgraphia are all forms of neurodivergence, so is ADHD. ADHD is not a behavoural issue, but a neurobiological developmental disorder. ADHD also has many overlapping traits with Autism, (not to be confused as the same, ADHD is not on the spectrum). These include, sensory overwhelm/sensitivity, memory issues, hyperfocus/hyperfixation, interrupting conversation/trouble waiting in turn, issues reading/recognising social cues, stimming, perseveration, (getting ‘stuck’ on or repeating a thought, topic or idea, even if the conversation has moved on), and avoidance/trouble with eye contact.

To be clear, ADHD is not on the spectrum, a distinguishing feature between these neurotypes is the cause of the symptom. For example someone with ADHD may not recognise social cues due to inattention/overwhelm/impulsivity, where as someone with autism may struggle to interpret these social cues.

It is important for ADHD to be recognised as a neurotype, and not a behavoural issue. When discussing ADHD traits with a neurotypical person, the response is often along the lines of ‘well everyone is a little distracted/unmotivated/lazy/forgetful/late sometimes.’ My response to that ‘Would you say that everyone is a bit ‘socially awkward/shy’ sometimes to an autistic person? Or ‘everyone has trouble reading sometimes’ to a dyslexic person?’ I imagine the answer would be no, as it is understood that these traits are a consistent, uncontrollable and debilitating.

The more I have learnt and read about ADHD in the context of neurodivergence, the more I have tried to recognise the ways I hide or detract from my symptoms, by ‘masking’. This has included, taking on certain personas or feeding someone elses assumption about me as ‘the messy one,’ ‘the disorganised one,’ ‘the chaotic one.’ In the past I have almost embraced these stereotypes about myself, as it gave me a sense of identity, a framework with which to see and understand myself. Frustration and anger masked over-stimulation/overwhelm, I was not able to recognise the root of these feelings and I also learnt to fidget/stim in the ‘right’ way. When engaging in small talk with someone I am unfamiliar with, I often resort to mimicing or imitating how I have seen other people interact, speak etc and I am conscious of eye contact, (too much, too little?). I catch myself looking at people/staring too much and am constantly trying to gauge what the right amount is, where else to look, etc. I struggle a lot with taking turns in convesation, as I don’t always know where to interject, or I worry I will forget the thought, this has led me to just stay silent instead in conversations and present myself as serious, or elusive.

That’s really all I have to say for today. I think overall ADHD is far more complex and challenging than it is perceived to be, and these stereotypes are so harmful to people who have it and are trying to navigate not only their symptoms, but a world that is not understanding nor knowledgeable of the limitations and struggles of ADHD or neurodivergence.

I have a lot more to say on all this and will try and write more about this going forward. DM/comment etc if you have any thoughts or criticism of anything I have said. Disclaimer, I am still learning and may make mistakes regarding information, or discussing other neurotypes !

Here are some links you might want to check out if you have/think you have ADHD or you have a friend or family member with ADHD. I also highly, highly recommend the ADHD subreddit!

ADHD explained simply:

https://www.additudemag.com/what-is-adhd-symptoms-causes-treatments/

“ADHD is a developmental impairment of the brain’s executive functions. People with ADHD have trouble with impulse-control, focusing, and organization.

“’Attention deficit’ is, some experts assert, a misleading name. “Attention deregulation” might be a more accurate description since most people with ADHD have more than enough attention — they just can’t harness it in the right direction at the right time with any consistency.”

Comorbidities https://adhd-institute.com/burden-of-adhd/epidemiology/comorbidities/ “The majority of adults with ADHD have a diagnosed or undiagnosed comorbid psychiatric disorder, which can complicate diagnosis and treatment of ADHD.1-3“ ADHD and Autism https://www.spectrumnews.org/features/deep-dive/decoding-overlap-autism-adhd/ “A growing number of genetic studies support the notion of at least some shared causation between autism and ADHD. But imaging studies comparing brain structures and connectivity have yielded a confusing mix of similarities and differences. And some behavioral research has highlighted the possibility that outwardly similar features mask distinct underlying mechanisms. Inattention in a person with autism, for example, might result from sensory overload, and apparent social problems in someone with ADHD may reflect impulsivity. Perseveration https://www.understood.org/en/friends-feelings/common-challenges/self-control/perseveration-adhd-and-learning-differences

“(Kids) who perseverate often say the same thing or behave in the same way over and over again. And they do it past the point where it makes sense or will change anything. It’s like they’re stuck in a loop that they can’t get out of.”

ADHD and social skills https://chadd.org/for-adults/relationships-social-skills/#:~:text=Social%20Skills%20in%20Adults%20with,their%20inattention%2C%20impulsivity%20and%20hyperactivity.

“Social skills are generally acquired through incidental learning: watching people, copying the behavior of others, practicing, and getting feedback. Most people start this process during early childhood. Social skills are practiced and honed by “playing grown-up” and through other childhood activities. The finer points of social interactions are sharpened by observation and peer feedback.

Children with ADHD often miss these details. They may pick up bits and pieces of what is appropriate but lack an overall view of social expectations. Unfortunately, as adults, they often realize “something” is missing but are never quite sure what that “something” may be.”

ADHD and stimming https://www.betterhelp.com/advice/adhd/repetitive-behaviors-in-children-with-adhd-stimming-fidgeting-and-what-these-actions-may-mean/

“Many believe that stimming and fidgeting is reserved for those on the autism spectrum. However, it is now known that children with ADHD are just as likely to use repetitive body movements to self-stimulate. In fact, autistic stimming and non-autistic stimming are different. The main difference is that those with ADHD typically only use stimming for a short period of time while they are trying to concentrate. For example, someone with ADHD may stim for under an hour while those with autism will stim for several hours at a time. While stimming and fidgeting are typically seen as tapping or rocking, there are many other things that children with ADHD do to self-stimulate. There are actually five different variations of stimming, which include olfactory, vestibular, visual, tactile, and auditory.”

#adhd #neurodivergent #neurodiversity

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