bewilderbrain

The mysterious workings of the neurotypical brain and body, a fascinating subject for study and investigation…

A helpful survival guide for neurodivergent brains…

Diagnosed young or old, there is one fundamental truth about being neurodivergent that no-one seems to recognise, or warn us about.

We don’t actually understand what it means to be neurotypical, or what is “normal.”

Why would we?

(For a celebration of neurodiverse brains – see fantastic beasts and where they are hiding…)

There are certainly serious discussions to be had surrounding this subject, and there might well be, in future.

This however, is not such a discussion.

May you find much needed illumination to the peculiarities and habits of these mysterious creatures in my comprehensive guide to spotting neurotypicals in the wild, starting with Part One – basic physical oddities.

Please be aware that no part of my extraordinarily helpful guide is intended to be critical of either neurotypical or neurodiverse brains.

I am making fun of us both equally.

Spotting neurotypicals in the wild –
Part One – Physical Oddities

1 – Paws – neurotypical paws do not appear to work properly.

When the neurotypical is at rest, paws are often to be observed resting completely still on any surface, or folded neatly in their laps.

The paws are frequently observed not to contain any useful elastic bands, pens, fidget toys, forgotten tools, articles of cutlery, or random nearby objects.

Frequently, the malfunctioning neurotypical paw will forget to gesticulate wildly, sometimes even remaining motionless in conversation.

It’s jiggle mechanism is faulty and it is incapable of producing peculiarly bent finger positions.

It is possible that neurotypical paws possess some kind of flavour profile problem, as it is not uncommon to find that the paws have not been gnawed around the edges, or otherwise picked during the normal course of everyday finger worrying.

Neurotypical paws do not understand packet opening, and can be observed using methods such as cutting with scissors, calmly peeling off packing tape, or opening a box one flap at a time.

Teaching the correct methods of screaming at the box, stabbing it with a cheese knife and then ripping it to shreds with their bare hands can be helpful to them if they are able to grasp it.

Perhaps most bizarrely, neurotypical paws seem to have a relationship with the neurotypical brain, whereby the one is aware of the actions of the other, and neurotypicals will often display an alarming awareness of what their paws are actually doing at any given time.

2 – Gait – neurotypicals experience peculiar differences with their mode of everyday transportation…

Frequently, they can be spotted proceeding forward in a linear fashion, merely navigating from point A to point B and entirely omitting to visit points “Over here” “what’s that?” “was that my own arse I just tripped over?” and “the interdimensional diagonal intersection between Sainsburys and the restaurant at the end of the universe.”

As such, they are unfortunately missing a great deal of life experience in their everyday ambulation.

Whilst ambulating, they may swing their limbs in a manner designed for effective balance and propulsion, finding themselves unable to produce the random movements required to walk directly in front of people in a diagonal line, or to smack passers by in the face with a flailing limb.

This can seriously inconvenience them by rendering them stuck behind other similarly slow and orderly walkers.

Additionally, their furniture and door frame magnets seem to have become jammed over the generations, preventing them from natural gravitation towards useful solid objects one uses to bounce off in everyday journeys.

It is uncertain how they are able navigate fully without the useful rebound effects of doorways and table corners, but it must lead them to feel very disorientated to keep missing things wherever they go.

Unfortunately for the poor creatures, this is another area where they are hampered by their brain communicating information to their limbs, which will often include a sense of not only what their limbs are doing, but where they are supposed to be going, and as such the joyful surprise of finding themselves in an entirely unknown location is an unavailable pleasure to them, as is the fortifying mental sport of trying to find and walk to their car in a supermarket car park.

3 – Faces- neurotypical faces have an abnormal expressive range…

A particular malfunction is that neurotypical faces have a tendency to change and form expressions in direct reaction to the emotions or conversations of their fellows, rather than the correct and normal expressions pertaining to whatever is going through their head at any given time.

These expressions sometimes offer unfathomable reassurance to others of their kind, even though, entirely unhelpfully, the expressions on their face do not match the sentiments felt on the inside.

Often this malfunction runs so deep that the neurotypical will be unable to produce an instinctively horrified face, for instance, when presented with a horrifyingly bad Christmas present.

Yet again, they may display an uncanny and intrusive awareness of what their face is actually doing at any given time.

Their faces can occasionally be observed making continuous eye contact with another face, with no obvious calculation taking part on either face as to how long they have been observing this peculiar ritual, and no apparent sense of discomfort or unease with it.

This much eye contact is almost certainly dangerous, as it is highly likely they may accidentally use the mechanism to read the thoughts of the person they are communicating with.

There is a risk of acute boredom being communicated across the eye-waves, or the revelation that fellow communicants have been unable to take in a word of conversation due to the intense distraction caused by the aforementioned eye-waves.

Neurotypicals are unable to recognise these subtleties, and have a tendency to provide their eye contact willy-nilly without having undertaken a thorough risk-assessment first.

4 – Speech – Speech is difficult for neurotypicals, who find their expression hampered by an ability to modulate their tone of voice and volume in conversation…

Frequently, this results in an abnormally slow and and calm speech pattern, which it is almost impossible for the rest of us to attend to without falling asleep.

Speech patterns are underdeveloped, showing no knowledge or expertise in the art of subject jumping, and the neurotypical may end up in an accidental loop of continuing the same subject for more than a minute or two at a time.

Neurotypicals are also afflicted by a faulty interruption setting, being unable to produce interruptions at will, and instead waiting quietly in a corner, unaware that constant interruption is necessary to prevent thought leakage.

They may also ask questions entirely relevant to what the other person is talking about, instead of being able to pop out a random more interesting fact that the other person has triggered.

Neurotypicals are once again hampered in their communications by an outdated filtration system in their brain, that prompts them to consider their sentiments and expressions of them before giving them voice.

This is a clear barrier to surprise and spontaneity in the wild, and leaves them wide open to the type of predators whose thoughts and speech arrive like lightning.

5 – Movement and rest – neurotypicals exhibit bizarre movement patterns and worrying sleep habits…

They can frequently be spotted standing entirely still whilst conversing, forgetting to continually shift their weight between one leg and the other, or to stand on one foot.

They seem unwilling or unable to interject the random bouncing, cart-wheels, roly-polys, one legged standing, tiptoeing or sliding that would normally be employed in everyday household manoeuvres.

The dance function in the brain of neurotypicals appears to be largely broken, or working intermittently, and is only triggered to produce small and infrequent bouts of dancing at occasions such as family weddings.

For most of their everyday lives, the neurotypical appears sadly unable to access this feature, and may go for days or even weeks at a time before producing a spontaneous dance.

Resting neurotypicals will often exhibit an unnatural stillness, apparently unable to soothe themselves by fidget swivels, bum shuffling and general leg wanging.

It is not unusual for a neurotypical to sit on a sofa in a standard “sitting” position, as their “lollop” function appears to have been bred out of them over the course of several generations.

They find it difficult to watch television in any of the normal positions, such as One Leg In Air, Balancing on Sofa Arm, Tightly Cocooned like Caterpillar In Blanket, or Head off Back of Sofa Seat Upside Down, and as such must miss many nuances of their favourite programmes due to the boredom generated by their position.

On retiring to their cocoons, neurotypicals have extremely peculiar habits.

Often, they will lie down in one position, falling asleep without remembering to proceed with pillow and duvet reshuffle procedures, bum nook wiggling, rubbing the soles of the feet together and getting up to check they have locked the door seven times.

They are often unable to keep themselves awake for the requisite 2-3 hours while they ensure that varied events over their lifetimes together with vivid random pictures created by their brains have been viewed on the mandatory visual shuffle loop.

This lack of the usual level of acute alertness experienced at bedtime must lead to a dangerously rested brain the following morning, and a subsequent worrying propensity for “perkiness”

Once sleep has commenced, the neurotypical is also frequently unable to employ the built in survival mode of waking up with a start to a leg jerk, imaginary noise or particularly striking thought which has broken through the sleep barrier.

This leaves them incredibly vulnerable in the wild to some of the darker overnight perils such as lights being left on, unexpected central heating changes or cat farts.

Let us open our doors and hearts and accept our differences…

Altogether, we can see just from this list of physical oddities, which only scratches the surface of understanding these fascinating creatures, that it is important to exercise both caution and empathy when attempting to approach neurotypicals in their natural habitat.

The behaviours and quirks of neurotypicals are part of the unique way their brains are wired. Fundamentally, it is important for us to try and understand, and to help shed light on their struggles by opening our minds to their ways…

I hope Part One of my guide to Neurotypicals in the Wild has proved helpful to you, but I welcome further observations…