#noia02

I’ve seen a lot of debate over the course of my life over “everyone is special” and what that means.  Particularly recently, I’ve seen a lot of people who dislike the scene in The Incredibles where Dash responds to the phrase with “That’s just another way of saying nobody’s special.”

Let’s talk about what both aspects of that conversation mean, both positively or negatively.

The movie has some messaging issues, I agree.  Dash’s criticisms also come out of the mouth of the movie’s main villain, and his main plan is to render the concept of “superhero” irrelevant by spreading superpower-emulating technology throughout the populace.  I don’t think that’s something the heroes really object to, and it’s definitely not why they go to stop him--even setting aside the fact that he’s a serial killer, he’s putting a whole city in danger to establish himself, and probably plans to do so many more times in the future.  The movie comes across as some kind of condemnation of lifting people up to exceptional heights as a result.  Maybe I’m wrong, maybe that was the intended message, but it seemed unintentional to me.

But let’s look at the good old “everyone’s special” dismissal, shall we?  Because that’s what it is: a dismissal.  Dash was looking for validation that he did have something special about him.  It doesn’t matter that his mother’s right--everybody’s got something--Dash needed to hear that what he could do mattered.  Every time I hear someone working with children go “Everyone’s special”, I hear them missing the point of what that kid needs (unless that kid’s being a little shit to other kids, of course).  Dash doesn’t deserve to be told that what’s special about him is bad because other kids can’t do it.  It’s not fair to let him compete with them, obviously, superpowers are a bit beyond real-world comparisons, but he didn’t deserve that any more than any other kid deserves to be told that the things that set them apart aren’t special.  That’s what “everyone’s special” means, as Dash says; it’s the adult saying “that’s nice, dear, but it doesn’t matter.”

Every kid’s got something.  Some kids can run really fast.  Some kids can paint.  Some kids can write amazing stories.  Some kids can do complex algebra in their heads, some kids can throw a handegg really far, some kids can run circles around other people at chess.  What’s special about you matters, what’s different about you is important.  Be proud of it.  Be proud of it as an adult, too.  It is different and special that you can speedpaint landscapes.  It is different and special that you can lift more than anyone else at your gym.  It is different and special that you make great french toast.  You’re good at things.  You’re better at some things than other people.  They’re better at other things than you are.  Big or small, these things matter.  Celebrate them.

The adults blame technology, claiming that violent media encourages imitation and that the children need to learn the difference between games and reality.

I was in my second year of college before I was diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder.  I’d been having anxiety attacks for a long time, of course, but as much as I’d spent my teenage years reshaping myself into a mimicry of neurotypical behavior, I still had a hard time reading other people--so I thought that the level of anxiety I experienced in general was normal and never brought it up.  It made me relatively resilient, sure, but I really wish I’d figured things out before then.

The inciting incident for figuring it out and getting treatment was a day in class when I hadn’t finished the homework.  I was planning on bluffing my way through the class, but when I got called on, I froze up, grabbed my thumb drive and laptop, and ran out of the classroom.

It’s a little blurry from there.  I claimed I was going to get the file from my desktop in my dorm room, but I ran there, locked myself in, and freaked the hell out.  I was ashamed, I was afraid, and I was, most horribly, paralyzed.  I couldn’t get myself to leave the room for a good long while.  I can’t remember the exact sequence of events that followed it up clearly; I talked to someone about the way I was feeling and how freaked out I was, but I think it was my mother who straight-out told me I was having panic attacks.  It was some sequence of events involving a call to my mom, setting up an appointment with a therapist, and having her help unravel the psychological damage I’d done to myself as a teenager, but I’m not great at temporal placement when I’m mostly in my right mind, let alone when I’m experiencing one of the more traumatic sequences in my life.

The conclusion was that while I’d always had OCD and anxiety issues, I’d spent my teenage years taking myself apart and reassembling myself around a nebulous set of behavioral rules that governed my ability to interact with neurotypical people without “embarrassing” myself.  This helped me figure out How To People--and is directly responsible for my immovable resistance to suicidal thoughts, oddly--but it also meant that I self-inflicted a spiraling anxiety disorder on myself, as any failure to meet said nebulous standards caused me to mentally berate myself so much that it evolved into an ever-growing litany of all my mistakes and failures.  Eventually, I wound myself so tight around that core that I started to crack, and there I wound up, sitting in a therapist’s office, trying to untangle the mess that was my mind.

The single most important piece of advice I have for someone seeking therapy (if you trust your therapist) is to overshare.  You don’t really know what’s relevant, and it’s their job to listen and guide you to the answers you need.  A good one will help you figure things out with deft touches, letting you reach epiphanies in a way that feels like it was all yours, but to do that they need to know what’s going on with you.

So tell your therapist everything you can.  Tell them about the stuff that makes you happy.  Tell them about the stuff that makes you sad.  Tell them what makes you angry, afraid, glum, excited; tell them about the things you enjoy but can’t bring yourself to do anymore, or the habits you’re having a hard time breaking, or how you really wish your spouse would stop trying to make fancy dinners because while you love them to pieces they’re fucking awful in the kitchen.

My favorite and least favorite depictions of PTSD triggers are both about badass space warrior women.  My favorite is Sergeant Calhoun, who has a very realistic freakout when she hears her dead husband’s pet name for her--she shrinks away from the guy who said it, makes herself small, lands the ship, and can’t even look at him while she orders him to get out in the most pained and vulnerable voice we hear from her in the entire movie.