It’s a term that’s being thrown around a lot and the definitions I hear seem to go from very broad to very specific.
To add to that, is epilepsy considered neurodivergent? Some sources say yes, some say no, and I’m quite confused.
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There’s no one definition for the term.
Originally it referred pretty much only to autism, but the got extended to similar ‘conditions’ of mankind: namely ADHD, dyslexia etc: Stuff that you are born with, that have a fluid distribution from ‘neurotypical’ to drastically affected in daily life.
So inherent differences in how a brain processes outside stimuli could be definition for that use of the term neurodivergent.
Which is especially relevant in people with adhd or autism who aren’t inherently ‘disabled’ but sollte having trouble due to their environment/modern society.
Getting easily overstimulated for example isn’t at all a problem for a human in general. If you live in a tribal society, there’d just be no comparable situation to having to travel on crowded noisy public transport etc.
Same with more minor executive dysfunction in ADHD: it’s a problem when stuff needs to follow very rigid time based structuring. But again isn’t a problem when there’s really only emergency events or doing stuff whenever you are motivated to.
Recent developments have neurodivergent being used for virtually all psychological disorders/ and at that point it really becomes totally meaningless.
There is no inherent difference between a neurotypical, and that same neurotypical going through a depressive episode.
Like the depression isn’t inherent to that person, like dyslexia; autism etc are.
Really at that point were you Lob in all psychiatric diagnosis and even random neurological ones, the word becomes utterly useless.
Basically: epilepsy is just a full on disorder. Seizures are not at all related to society and differences in the ways someone thinks. They are literally unregulated of large numbers of neurons. Like there’s a straight up easy to note physical cause for the disease.
Neurodivergence came up as a term by autism advocated exactly to describe the parts that make someone different, that aren’t inherently diseases/damage etc.
Same with ADHD, or dyslexia like things.
That’s why having a term as a short hand to group people together who have a mental frame work that differs from that displayed by the ‘normal’ ie neurotypical society is useful.
Once you lump it together with epilepsy, MDD, etc you are basically making neurodivergent a 100% equal synonym for ‘psychiatry and neurology’
Neurodivergence in itself isn’t something that inherently needs to be cured.
But this also doesn’t mean that there’s degrees of severity on say the autism spectrum that don’t also inherently cause suffering.
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