sadiepickles:

socially-ineptnerd:

The neurodivergent representation that we get in the media is horrible. Why? you may ask. Well, mostly because we’re the antagonists or we’re the victims. Either we get painted as villains or we get dehumanized into something less than human for pity points. It’s rare to see movies or films show us with accurate symptoms and a fully-developed character and not just ____-code characters or use us as a trope. 

We have:

• The “funny” kid with ADHD. So popular, always forgetful- hey look a butterfly
• The genius autistic man that knows what you did 2 years, 7 months and 3 days ago by how you blink. 
• Or on the other side of that coin, the “child in an adult body”, helpless, unable to do things others can, a tragedy.
• The schizophrenic that hears people that tell him to kill people. No negative symptoms, delusions all tie in with the reason he’s violent and nobody ever thinks to treat him for schizophrenia.
• The Abusive Bipolar who is a burden to their entire family. Always angry or in bed and their children cry outside the door of the bedroom.
• OCD character with a color-coded closet. Move anything and they will Stab you. Do not do it. No obsessions are ever mentioned. All you know is they are super organized and perfectionistic.
• The Anxious dorkball that somehow just looks cute and never shows any other of the ugly symptoms like shortness of breath, sweating, panic attacks, not leaving the house for days because the anxiety is too bad, or excessive fear. 
• The Depressed teenage girl that is magically cured by a cute boy. 

But do we have accurately portrayed neurodivergent people? No. We have stereotypes and we have poorly-written characters whose arc ends in death or suffering. That’s the problem with the representation we get in the media- we don’t really see people like us getting a happy ending or learning to be happy with their life. It’s always in spite of their disorder, even though they’re disordered. And that’s not okay. People like us should have happy stories too. Tell the funny sides of the disorder, the dark sides of the disorder, the good and the bad times. 

But don’t reduce us to a caricature. 

Well said