Neurodiversity and process
I process life and information slowly and deeply (processing disorder).
Numbers and time are meaningless to me (dyscalculia).
I have routines and am hyper-organized to overcome the difficulty of keeping on top of the day-to-day. Because I have no sense of time. And because doing more than one thing at a time, dealing with more than one input at a time, is like turning a fire hose on me. So I use pattern thinking to predict what will happen so that I don’t get overwhelmed, to keep on track. And I do one thing at a time, one thing very very well at a time. My brain is beautifully messy. Adding to that a mess on the outside just sends me into overload. And me in overload, is. not. pretty. Hot desking, open office plans, ARGH!
I consume massive amounts of disparate information, that takes me several passes and iterations to fully absorb, to understand how the pieces fit together. I need to understand the whole to be able to understand the pieces, to then turn information into actionable insights. Sadly much education and research is structured around understanding specific pieces rather than connecting and understanding them in the context of the larger whole. The time it takes me means that we'll be having long-running conversations. Because I've been mulling over and processing what was said the entire time in between. I'm still in a conversation with a friend about the value of vocals in music from 15 years ago.
Going deep, processing slowly, means that context switching is not seamless. Transitions take me time. Sometimes, ok often, they are not fun. For anyone. I will miss information, what was said, and... getting pulled out of my mental flow is like being blindsided by a Mack Truck. A shock to the system and not pretty. With a bit of warning, I can swerve.
Being put on the spot is one of my worst nightmares. Unless I’ve had time, and several passes within iterations, to absorb all the information I need… and am currently in the mental zone of whatever topic want me to speak eloquently on…. I’m going to panic. And fail. I have very little working memory and often say the wrong words out loud when the right ones are in my brain all along. The words “she said it was a breeze” might come out of my mouth when in my head it was "she said it was torture". In writing, words get left out and typos are made. And I won't catch them until the 3rd or 4th -ish re-reading. Autocorrect actually makes this worse.
When the world moves at a pace closer to life’s natural rhythms (I grew up on a farm), when the expectations of perfection and high productivity for ever-increasing profit’s sake are not at the insane levels they are now, when life is more organic and less mechanical, I do fine. I can and do learn deep and complex concepts, take in information and connect them into deep insights. I sort through ideas, organize them and plan out what I’ll say. I’ll correct the mistakes in type with time to decompress mentally in between re-readings. Time in between to mentally decompress -to work with my hands- is as essential as planning, prep, and iterations. Processing data tactilely also helps each iteration be better than the last.
Understanding and accepting that, and how I approach questions and problems, becomes much clearer. Make no mistake, I am capable, sharp, and quick-witted. It's taken me my whole life to realize this and be able to say out loud. It still feels weird to say to others. So many years of feeling average, incapable, or not terribly quick. Thankfully I've realized that my processing disorder is "normal", not a dis-order at all, and is a lens that has led me to researching lived expereinces.
I love exploratory research, especially when it reframes how we think about – everything. How does that look, what does that feel like, why? It’s open-ended – following observations to questions, and questions to observations, absorbing context and meaning in the experiential data along the way. Taking apart specific linear bits within a process, turning them about to analyze and connect back to the whole. The process is neither linear nor predictive. That’s the point. And the beauty. Not only does it mirror my own neurology, it’s how life actually is.
And reflecting life as it actually is lived, is the goal of research, no?
