A Brief Guide to Neurodiversity

by Peter Smagorinsky

While sharing a vacation cabin with my siblings, one of my sisters and I were on kitchen duty. She said, “It’s a good thing we’ve got OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder). The kitchen is spotless.”

I agreed with her except for one thing: the D. “If the place is spotless because of our obsessive-compulsiveness, how can it be a disorder?” I asked. Obsessive-compulsiveness seemed like a good sense of order to have under these circumstances. Continue reading

Committed to Super Powers

by Sarah Wilson Merriman

There is a fine line between efficiency and mania in my book. I want to think that all I do is efficient. The shakiness in my hands and feet tells me that it’s sometimes mania, though. My body literally cannot keep up with my brain. I spend my days exhausted and unable to sleep for longer than a few hours at a time. On the other end of the spectrum, I have been described as the melancholy to a colleague’s sunshine. It was said with kindness and truth, as I am often melancholy, but is this the image that I want projected of me?

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