Much of my awareness and expertise on relational trauma surround having experienced such complicated personal levels while at the same time having direct exposure to multiple generations back, enabling ultimate understanding to its sources. It doesn’t hurt that in addition to the life I have lived, I was born with unrecognised autism. What I find interesting about myself is that I am also incredibly adaptable. The trait I was referred to have excess of by two Clinical Psychologists I studied under during my undergraduate studies was that of resilience. Being ever adaptable, by nature, goes against the fundamental concepts that the psychological community has approached autism spectrum disorder. This has been the assumption that those born with this rigid thought process involving serious sensory processing complications are incapable of change. No wonder so many have fallen through the cracks. My situation has been difficult with providers in large part due to my brain being what I have referred to as this “weird Meredith brain mapping” and now I’ve been left to sort through it on my own. Many of the clients I worked with who experience severe mental illness share a similar frustration of not knowing what or how they are supposed to be. This includes a misunderstanding of what provider’s expectations of them are and wishing it were clear cut.
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Back to how this incognito condition has contributed to my proclaimed expertise in mental health. Honestly, it feels like I have been the ultimate social scientist since I was in second grade. I may not have great self-awareness in the moment, but I have amazing reflection skills and when I am provided the information needed to make sense of a situation, my brain can accept it. With practice, I can often replicate the anticipated behaviors for prescribed situations. I did not have anyone but my “inside voice” helping me to make sense of the world, no wonder I’ve had a bit of a learning curve to get to the point I am. A significant reflective observation of mine concerning talk therapy and its potential ineffectiveness surround the detrimental impact I feel it is having on the adaptable neurodivergent. I say this because for almost a decade I underwent traditional CBT to accompany severe overmedication. Now that I have become familiar with the manner in which my mind works through the use of my own education and then going to a therapist who also struggles with some neurodivergence, I seriously believe that I spent that near decade being unknowingly gaslit by neurotypical providers. I truly believe this has contributed to the severity with which my thoughts can twist. Part of the blame for some of my nonsensical word patterns of course can also be attributed to being higher intellectual. This surrounds the fear and paranoia instilled to do with the importance in avoiding plagiarism – oh the sentence structures I have come up with to avoid this!
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I describe us as “living in a world of memes”. It’s such a simple way for someone to be made aware they really are not alone – if there’s a meme about it, surely more people are experiencing it! I think a favorite of mine was a hot take on the neurodivergent community. It is very often stated that those with ASD are unable to identify social cues. This meme presented the hot take that the neurodivergent brain does understand social cues, what it cannot conceive are inauthentic social cues. Yes! This is it. This is everything my life experiences have added to. I grew up liking rules and liking to follow rules. But when you live in a world of contradicting rules in a “do as you’re told” household – this becomes very challenging. Rules in terms of order: 1. Church – obviously church which feed right into 2. Parents – who you obey at the fear of the wrath of God. Somewhere in there would be school rules, inside the house versus outside the house social rules which seemed extreme coming from a reputable family of the community with image to uphold. Then there were the rules on my dad’s side of the family who came from the top socioeconomic class which reeeeaalllyyy didn’t match the rules on my mother’s family from the lowest financial class. These were all rules that were nearly impossible to manage growing up. I spent a lot of my time inward, trying to figure out how to navigate social situations – I have become thankful that I have grown to love myself and time with myself as not to take these difficult interactions personally. It was through living on the inside that I have really been able to make connections to generational trauma and how it has impacted those I love and want to love in their own relationships.
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When I went back to therapy on my own terms in June of 2019. I remember acknowledging that none of the stages of development I have gone through matched any traditional sense of growth. Yet here I am, plopped into adulthood, just expected to know how to manage it. Of all the rules I have had to make sense of, there is one that I did not expect to encounter and that is not readily identified in any research I have seen of yet. This is the observation that I am way too small town for the city. In presenting this to a former manager, she said she didn’t think she’d ever heard this. The thought really became pronounced midway through my Master of Social Work program who paid little to no attention to rural community work. There was a specific work by a Black male author done as a follow up to previously breakthrough A Framework for Poverty which had been done by a white women. The Black author, Kunjufu, laid out different rules by which one had to live in various social classes. I see opportunity for this to be expanded on to include rules of an impoverished rural community whose framework is as different. What I can say of myself is that living three decades in a population of less than 20,000 and then moving to the suburbs has left me in disgust. I am of a collectivist background to an environment who has not been inspired to embrace this at appropriate rates. I come from the rural America that could unite to get through times of suffering together under self-governance. Now, I am surrounded by those who offer shallow levels of concern and support. It is so clear to me that the suburban life is filled with those who’ve fled various attachment conflicts. Whether it was the systemic poverty typically fled by the urban population or the increasing familial abandonment through avoidance in leaving rural homesteaded territories – this area is filled with the superficial and the largely unhealed. It is so individually driven that no wonder they found hope in the unity of COVID19 pandemic.
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In an overall assessment of those with neurodivergent traits, it seems unfortunate that the stillness of rural life has gone overlooked in its potential for providing environment for healing. There is much commotion and differing energies moving about the city and suburb that the country could meet with solace. As interesting to me is that the rural environment is one that is supportive to small business and participation in community care, once you’ve been accepted. This is an area which can support work while accommodating symptom needs. If we were to turn our investments toward creating treatment environments in these small communities, we could see more progression towards recovered states and less continued medical model needs. The neurodivergent mind is entrepreneurial in nature and is why so much of the midwestern small towns were built of stabilized yet unique minds. These areas should be seen as collectivist in nature and more family-based models of treatment are needed. Behavioral psychologists have immense room for opportunity as it relates to approaching generational relationship trauma in these areas where primary dating concerns were seen as finding a mate who isn’t related. As it is, the rural neurodivergent is being left behind, while the rural landscape offers the most potential for hope in alternative treatment methods.
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Alternatives with Care 
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