Hey there, MisWired here. And today I want to talk about value added to society, or V.A.T.S for short. I noticed that one of the biggest issues that neurodiverse people face is the struggle to live up to societal expectations. More often that not, our worth is determined by where we went to school, what we studied, what job we have, how much money we make, who we marry, etc etc. We often focus on what the person has to offer that we often forget the person.
So how does it affect neurodiverse people? You often find that due to the struggle of us trying to set aside our conditions, we often forget what made us unique in the first place. More often than not it is our empathetic nature and creative solutions to problems facing us that draw people to us. It is these unseen factors that we add to society, and allow us to bring out the full potential not only in ourselves but in others. Yet they are often sidelined for more visible factors that we may not be able to control due to the nature of how we are.
Due to how society is, and how most of us were brought up, we often value ourselves based on quantifiable factors. And because of this, it often affects our self-confidence, our interests, and our ability to take some risks. We often sideline the things we are good at to try and succeed at things society tells us we should be good at, and I feel like that often puts us into a cycle of self-hatred and failure. I know it did that to me. At the age of 27, I still can't acknowledge the things that I'm good at because I feel like they don't add value to the people around me or society in general.
So at the end of the day, what is the V.A.T.S for neurodiverse people? Well, it differs for each of us. For me, it is my creativity, my ability to pick things quickly, my ability to entertain. It is my empathy, my willingness to learn and listen, my ability to put smiles on people's faces.It is what people are unable to see that I add, and I believe it's the same for all of us.
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