I’m not completely sure about the below cuz, granted, I grew up very isolated and sheltered therefore gaining little to no context of the “growing up as a millennial” experience until I entered the realm of social media about the time that older-mid GenZ/Zoomers (which is preferred, please?😃) were posting from their 20’s about growing up in their generation.
Meanwhile. I maybe think that “going nonverbal” due to nuerospicy overwhelm is something that girls/afabs are usually kinda socialized out of? But also I didn’t grow up with brothers, so maybe guys/amabs are socialized out of that, too? Except I’ve met some (specifically white) guys/amabs talking about how hard it is to go nonverbal/having their partner coming up with solutions for those situations, and I’m just always like … that’s an option?!?
And I’m not talking about being nonverbal, I’m not taking about usually being verbal but having times where being verbal, for whatever mental illness/mental spectrum reason, simply cannot occur. I’m taking about going nonverbal. Like, everything in you feels like talking will make your soul vomit, but talking is The Necessary Thing To Do, So We Talk. Except some folks (white males if speaking of my personal experience with people my age-ish or if speaking of my online experience also younger folks raised by not Boomers/older GenX/parents of any age ascribing to those child-raising approaches) … just don’t? They actually don’t talk when their brain says don’t talk, even if technically they could force themselves to?
Cuz, well, that just wasn’t an option growing up as a kiddo of Boomer parents with most of the parenting done by my Boomer mom. There was no physical abuse going on in my childhood (literally thank heaven), but, ya know, having a parent distressed and disregulated cuz you won’t TELL THEM WHAT THE PROBLEM IS ain’t no fun, right? And it makes anything causing overwhelm noticeably worse, yeah?
So you just … pushed the words out. Even when it felt painful inside to do so. Even when it felt almost violating to have to do so to keep from rocking the boat and making the ride more uncomfortable for the other people in your sad little dysfunctional family’s metaphorical boat.
And if you were normally a happily chatty sort of smol bean, that added to going nonverbal being a nonoption as well. Cuz “you don’t normally have trouble talking, you normally talk SO MUCH” dialogues are gonna both persuade you to talk more when you’re not feeling well and convince you talking less when you are feeling well is preferable.
Anyway, I’m SO grateful emojis exist!! Because of them, I can comment on people’s tumblr posts when I don’t know what to say cuz my head is too loud, am having trouble wording due to IT HAS TO PERFECTLY EXPRESS WHAT I MEAN IN A NON-MIS-UNDERSTANDABLE WAY issues, feel too sad or tired or broken inside for lingual expression (are those aspects of going or being nonverbal, I don’t actually honestly know, I’m legitimately trying to figure out if that’s another neurospicy thing little me learned to mask about/big me still does or if that weird sense of your throat being too closed up for the words that you’re feeling compelled to push out cuz ANOTHER HUMAN WANTS YOU TO is not particularly neurospicy to experience, like, a lot of the time, especially when your brain and your body don’t feel tethered correctly/you just aren’t doing well?).
Anywho, if I leave emojis instead of words/both in a comment on your post, just please know that what you shared meant enough to me that I simply had to respond somehow, and I specifically only used two emojis so they could appear big (learned this recently).
And if any seonbaes, senpais, eonnis, oppas, or nonbinary equivalents wanted/had time to soapbox about this a little bit, that would be lovely. Also I mean those terms in the most platonic of ways having nothing particular to do with calendar age. I am a smol neurospicy bean wif big eyes that is in internet age much younger than probably/possibly most of you. 🥺🫶🏻
And please, to try and clarify again, in NO WAY am I talking about the nonverbal equivalent of being wheelchair-bound, I am talking about the nonverbal equivalent of knowing that walking is not a good idea for you today, but technically you can move your legs if you force yourself, so oh, well, humans who can walk need to walk, right?, so you yet again use the fumes in your empty gas tank to Please The Others (even if you’re basing whether they’ll be pleased by this on how people in your past were pleased). Yet it seems others experiencing the nonverbal equivalent of knowing that walking is not a good idea for you today, but technically you can move your legs if you force yourself … don’t force themselves? And I’m sure it’s not just whites males/amabs who don’t, I just referenced that because those are the only in-person people I’ve interacted with that do this. Who have explained to me that they do this cuz sometimes talking is hard, not cuz sometimes they literally cannot talk. AND I’M NOT SAYING IT’S BAD!! It just … confuses me? And I experience the slightest touch of, “well, that seems like it would be nice to be able to do” before my brain police slap me across my internal face for being a horrible person yet again.
DOES ANY OF THIS MAKE SENSE?! No? Yeah, probably not. Also it’s really long, so if you got through any of it, that was really nice of you, and I’m sorry there wasn’t a good payoff for doing so.