Indigo Child is a term that’s been around since the 1960s.
It often assigns traits and attributes of the child—attributes most likely rooted in Autism and ADHD—and claims them to be the product of special gifts such as magic or in some cases, being an alien from another planet sent to earth to guide “normal” folks to spiritual enlightenment. (That’s where starseed comes from.)
Sometimes it’s used in a throwaway term to simply mean creative and “marches to their own tune” sort of way, but when you get deeper into it, a lot of the time it was being used to deny neurodivergent kids access to mental wellness care, or even physical care.
The children are often put on an unhealthy pedestal and taught to believe that they are “special” and that the reason they struggle to fit in with their peers and to understand social norms isn’t because there is anything wrong with them, it’s because they are {insert pseudoscience new age spiritualism here.}
You’re not Autistic, Autism is bad, you’re just an old soul.
You’re not ADHD, ADHD is bad, you’re just connected to another planetary wavelength, that’s why you can’t focus on anything here on Earth.
It can become exploitarove and harmful very quickly depending how far down the new age rabbit hole the adults are.
For example, my “emotional maturity” from about the age of, oh, five, was attributed by an outsider of my family to me being “an old soul” and that meant it was okay for the adults in my life to place their emotional wellbeing and stability on me, because I was secretly older than them and more emotionally advanced.
The chronic pain I started self-reporting from about the age eight or nine wasn’t actually mine, it was the manifestation of my ability to absorb the pain of others and I just needed to become more spiritually enlightened to stop feeling it. (spoiler alert it was EDS and a whole bunch of other stuff)
My trauma and my response to it, ie placating the emotionally immature adults in my life, was twisted into a positive spiritual trait that could be explained in such a way that it made it okay to exploit.
I wasn’t a traumatized child with ADHD learning to manage the emotions of people around me because it was the only way to survive—I was gifted. The universe had made me this way to teach humanity a lesson and to heal it.
I hopefully don’t need to explain how abusive and harmful this is. And regrettably, my experience was not rare. There are survivor groups for this shit and honestly sometimes when I read what other people went through and what they continued to go through (this shit makes you extremely susceptible to joining cults as an adult) I got out relatively unscathed. Traumatized and probably more disabled than I would have been had I gotten help, but nowhere near as bad as some folk.
For some people, it's simply a way of acknowledging their child is different without using a label they don't like (because ableism!)
For others its a pathway to justify serious neglect and abuse and it drives me fucking bonkers to see how quickly people are latching onto it again now that it's being repackaged as self-empowerment and wellness.
You’re not from another planet, Sharon. You’re just bad at social cues. You’re not an angel or a higher being of consciousness sent by the divine energy of the cosmos to sell essential oils. That's an MLM and you’re just another brick in the pyramid scheme.
And these scammers know that. They’re trusting that you’re vulnerable enough that you’ll keep paying to have your insecurities affirmed in a positive, often spiritual sense, usually to the detriment of your wallet, your mental health and sometimes your physical too.
You’re not struggling with the mental toll of the horrors we’re all witnessing—you just haven’t found your female archetype routine yet. 🫠
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