what is the difference between neurodivergence and mental health disorders?
In: Biology
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Neurodivergence covers a wider range of mental ‘issues’ than mental health disorders would cover. For example, if someone is _DIAGNOSED_ with ADHD that person could be considered neurodivergent as their brain doesn’t produce specific chemicals (dopamine) than a ‘normal’ person’s brain would.
A mental health disorder implies mental illness, such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia or depression.
I’m neuro-divergent and I have aphasia.
The former I don’t consider a mental health disorder. It just indicates that there are aspects of my brain function that is atypical but not ‘wrong’ per se.
The latter I do consider a mental health disorder, because there are functions that are broken. There is something wrong. In my case, due to head trauma.
Autism is not a mental health disorder. It’s a neurological and developmental disorder and those that have autism can have perfectly healthy mental health. Often though, they can have a co-occurring condition like depression and anxiety. Interestingly though, adhd is labeled as a mental disorder.
Mental health disorders are neurodivergent, as they’re neurologically divergent (different) from ‘normal’, but not all neurodivergence is a mental health disorder. For example, autism isn’t a mental health disorder, but it is neurodivergent.
Mental health disorders require extensive management in order to support a person going about life. Medication, therapy, even up to a limitation of freedoms.
Neurodivergence (when used as a simple label) only requires specific management in order to support a person going about life. Avoiding triggers, mental exercises, managing expectations, and perhaps some mental health treatments where it overlaps with mental health. But it’s essentially somebody that is different than how society expects them to be.
Mental health disorders are definitionally a problem; it’s why they are disorders instead of quirks. For example, being afraid of dying isn’t a clinically treated phobia, unless it causes a person to avoid living life. Meanwhile, neurodivergence is only a problem when society refuses to be flexible.
Neurodivergence is simply a matter of a functioning brain that is wired differently from the standard brain. A mental heath disorder is a matter of a brain whose healthy functioning is impaired for whatever reason.
Here’s an analogy:
An Android phone and an iPhone are different ways of building a smartphone. While each has different strengths and weaknesses, both are capable of doing basically everything that you want a smartphone to do. Depending on how you want to define it, one platform would be considered neurotypical, and the other would be neurodivergent. There are many ways you could choose which is which, but the simplest would be to simply state that the most popular one is the “typical” phone platform, and the other one would be the “divergent” platform.
A mental health disorder would relate to a damaged phone. Maybe it has a virus, maybe you’ve dropped it and it has a cracked screen, maybe the battery is failing, maybe there’s a problem with the hardware. Regardless, there is some damage to the phone that is making it incapable of functioning at the typical level.
This isn’t perfectly scientific but:
Neurodivergence: the tism, adhd, dyslexia (I believe) can be annoying and/or frustrating for you and the people around you, but you can live with them perfectly well with coping mechanisms and people who love you. They won’t HURT anyone else or you
Mental illness, outside of mild anxiety and mild depression, cannot be coped with. You can’t cope your way out of being schizophrenic, or being manic depressive bipolar. You’re not different you’re genuinely sick
Obviously there are caveats. There are some people who’s schizophrenic voices are helpful and remind them to shower, instead of telling them to jump off a bridge. Just as there are some people who’s autism is so bad they can’t leave their home or work, or whose adhd prevents them from feeding themselves with any regularity
Also fun fact! The more collectivist your culture, the more likely your schizophrenic voices are to be kind and helpful
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