Member-only story
A Label For My Neurodivergence Doesn’t Help Me Much
…unless other people give a shit or two
Since I was a little girl, I have had “butterfingers”. Things easily slip through my fingers. Like mom’s big serving bowls and the dinner plates, as I am setting the table. By the time I left home, I had broken all of mom’s serving bowls. Sure, she just bought more. They weren’t heirlooms or anything. And I had made dinner most nights for years and years before that. So, it wasn’t just because I was messy and sloppy in the kitchen, it was because I lived there. It’s just where I was needed. And most of the time, it was where I was appreciated.
But, if I had a penny for every time my mother made a comment about my butterfingers, or the messes I made while I was cooking…
Sidenote: I was always in a hurry while cooking. I was a kid. And I had homework, and kids I was watching. And kids tend to try to kill themselves and others at random times, all day, every day. This wasn’t the social media mom making dinner. This was normal, everyday chaos, with a casserole in the oven. But my nervous system wasn’t made for multi-tasking and chaos.
Throughout my marriage, there were also comments about my butterfingers. I broke all of the glasses in the cupboard within the first year we were married. It was also the most devastating…
