I'm sitting here at the dining table and supposed to be writing a report about this project, but I just can't concentrate. Everything is going round in circles; the more I push myself, the more guilt I feel which in turn feeds the mental tsunami. Ideas and thoughts are seen but are washing round and round just out of reach in tantalising torment. When I realise others in my position are depending on me, I start to feel the fear rising alongside that familiar feeling that I'm failing again. This has unfortunately been a reoccurring constant in my life and yet people say to me: ‘you can talk about it- why can't you write it down. You’re reasonably clever.’ and I should find this ‘sort of thing’ easy- just as others do. More recently, I was told: ‘because you can so eloquently describe what's wrong and the support you need you obviously don't need it.’
Maybe it's not as simple then, to blame yourself but if everyone else does, you tend to go with the flow. This is the tyranny of the functioning label and a misunderstood spiky profile. In reality, I seem to be suffering some sort of executive functioning failure which, for Neurodivergent people, seems common- but what has this to do with being an artist?
There are many barriers to engaging in the arts and society for Neurodivergent creatives. Mostly these seem to be systemic, external to the self, but they also have an internal effect which raises different barriers, often home grown and nurtured sometimes over a long time. Are they an innate part of the territory of ‘neurodistinctiveness’ or are they a natural response to an unjust society that expects you to ‘not be you’ most of the time. We expect difference in the arts and, as Neurodivergent people, experience the world differently- you'd think this would be a perfect match for advancement in the arts world. It tends not to be like this as often we're lauded for creating but expected to leave our divergences at the door. Maybe we like and admire difference but not different people- or should I say treating different people differently? This is where ‘we've always done it this way’ seems to step in and acceptance, recognition and respect heads out the window. It's often not people that are the difficulty but the system, the structures they reinforce or create. Neurodivergent people tend to learn that the world isn't set up to accommodate them early on and a countdown begins. I knew I was different from others my age as soon as I got to school. There were a few others I was drawn to and looking back I know now I was seeking and finding my peers, my ‘neurotribe’, as Steve Silberman would put it. I couldn't put a name to my difference although others often tried with less than encouraging terms. I'm XNeurodivergent as I have multiple distinctiveness. I'm officially dyslexic, autistic, synesthetic and self-recognised as ADHD. At school I realised I did not fit the system and had to compensate or camouflage, often both simultaneously. I have lived my life often outwardly as ‘someone else’ and this has a deleterious effect on your personality and mental health. I said I'd be an artist aged 6 not because that's what I'd fancy doing but it just felt ‘me’. I found favour with my class by drawing but when a teacher tore a carefully crafted picture up in front of the class as I'd spelt my name wrong I learnt to hide. I never did go on to study art but instead chose ‘geologic time’ which naturally favoured my then-unnamed but active synaesthesia. I could have become an ‘obsessed expert’ enclosed and tucked away safe in a geology department or museum but people got in the way again. I returned to drawing firstly geological then archaeological illustration and whilst I had no issues creating I had severe difficulty with promotion or selling myself; accounts and admin always seemed a mountain. I just got on with it and depended on a few contacts and people seeing my work or word of mouth which is strangely very similar to how I work now. You don't seem to habituate or get used to networking or promotion unfortunately. So if you can't change the way you are and the system demands this what happens? Unless you extremely lucky and get ‘chosen’ becoming financially secure and supported you gradually build up a reservoir of masked ‘non belonging’, trauma, frustration, unfulfilled creativeness and on reaching exhaustion point, the dam breaks as burnout or worse. Many developing poor mental health for which they face similar intolerance, lack of recognition and little accommodation within the health service. It shouldn't be like this and the arts establishment needs to adapt, accommodate and recognise the different richness we bring as ourselves when supported appropriately and the human cost when we are not. The responses to our surveys amplify these issues and echo my story which is something I find incredibly sad as so many are struggling with similar issues both external and internal. Yes this also has an effect on creativity when you feel you don't belong but there is some comfort in making even at the advanced stages of trauma. I can still imagine thru the fog and draw, I just can't tell you or others about it coherently.
Jon Adams, April 2021
Image courtesy of Cat Researchers (Satirical Autism Research)