Lots of people – including neurodivergent ones – love the word ‘neurospicy’ as a replacement for ‘neurodivergent’.
If that’s you, crack on. The following is my personal opinion, rather than an attempt to control anyone else’s language.
I read ‘neurospicy’ as a lighthearted, fun term. It’s less intimidating than ‘neurodivergent’, perhaps. It brings in a little humour, and doesn’t have the psychiatric, diagnosis-centric connotations that can come with other words.
Whilst that all sounds positive… It’s all about context. I’ve most often heard ‘neurospicy’ in the context of:
- People asking other people if they’re neurodivergent (“Are you neurospicy too?”)
- Business owners saying they work with neurodivergent people (“I help neurospicy people with…”)
- Generalising or minimising neurodivergence to make it more comfortable (“Well, we’re all a bit neurospicy, aren’t we?”). Whilst I also hear this tendency without the word neurospicy, it appears to lend itself well to this use.
Why ‘neurospicy’ is a mismatch for me
The thing I think gets missed when liberally sprinkling this dose of levity into the conversation, is the gravity of what people are actually dealing with. Debilitating difficulties, complex trauma, severe disability.
Yes, with the right awareness, advocacy and support, neurodivergence can be understood separately from this kind of distress. It can be an identity to be embraced, along with significant strengths. But, that’s not a given, and there are heaps of people who aren’t accessing that more positive experience yet.
So if I hear someone using ‘neurospicy’ to refer to themselves, I love it. Clearly that word resonates for them, chimes with their own experience. But I don’t like to make an assumption about where someone else is at, and honestly it’s often been personally jarring when people use that term on my behalf, since it’s just not a fit for me.
I think there’s something minimising about the term. It gives me a whiff of toxic positivity. And I think it can come from people wanting to make something palatable, that could actually be pretty uncomfortable if we really pay attention to what people are experiencing.
Why do we need a ‘fun’ term for neurodivergence at all?
I also find it odd that people feel the need to find a ‘fun’ term for neurodivergence, when they wouldn’t dream of doing that with other forms of cultural difference or disability. What is it about the ND experience that we want to ‘lighten up’ with?
I think it can dovetail nicely into peoples’ opinions about neurodivergence being overdiagnosed, exaggerated. The kind of narrative that belittles peoples’ lived experience, and questions that they’re actually struggling.
I’m going to go into these particular misconceptions and myths in another blog post… but for now let’s just say that there’s often something uncomfortable for people about neurodivergence. They want to deny it, minimise it, push it away and… make light of it.
Use the language for neurodivergence that feels right for you
So, in case it wasn’t already obvious, it’s a ‘no thank you’ from me. It’s been a painful, challenging journey for me, and for many of my clients too. And – even once the hard work of unshaming and self-understanding has progressed – I think it’s still too important and weighty in terms of life impact to put cutesie language around it.
I do understand that there can be a reclamation for neurodivergent people here. By using a term that doesn’t have negative connotations, they actually get to reframe and bring a new energy into their experience.
Again, I’m in full support of people making the choice for themselves. Just not when they apply it liberally on behalf of all neurodivergent people everywhere.
