‘Neurospicy’… This word is again a hot topic in the neurodiversity scene. Some people love it, some do not like it. And some don’t like the word ‘neurodivergent’. Here are my thoughts:
‘Neurodivergent’ is a deliberately vague and inclusive socio-political term that expresses in non-medicalised language that one’s mind works in some way differently from societal ideas of ‘normal’. I understand that some people find it is othering. In my view, different is OK, so divergent is also OK. I describe myself as neurodivergent, only when the vagueness does not matter. Likewise, I describe myself as queer if I am not talking specifically about bisexuality. However, if I am seeking better understanding and support for being autistic, then I just say the word, autistic. If I am seeking better understanding and support for being ADHD, then I say ADHD. If I am seeking better understanding of being both autistic and ADHD, then I say ‘AuDHD’.
As I recall, ‘neurospicy’ stems from a joke that was doing the rounds a few years ago about how ‘mild autism’ suggests the existence of ‘spicy autism’. That was funny, it made me chuckle, and it shone a light of the ridiculousness of functioning labels. Then came various spin-offs from that joke, e.g. my autism is madras strength, not korma strength, then ‘neurospicy’. It is fun, but it potentially lands like a racist and/or misogynist micro-aggression. It is really not my lane to explain why, but please read and listen to what neurodiversity advocates from the global majority say about this. I agree that ‘neurospicy’ has never been intentionally offensive, but the same can be said about many other racist and sexist micro-aggressions. We live and learn, hopefully!
Some alternatives: neurodifferent, neurosparkly, neuro-atypical, neuroquirky, neurofruity (thanks to Paul Stevenson at Genius Within for that one), and in my case AuDHD.
P.S. no robots were used in the making of this post.
Ausome Charlie 