Bachelor, Self-Disclosure and Self-Advocacy
Confession: Watching the Bachelor is a guilty pleasure of mine. I’ve watched it since I was 18, and it just stuck. If I’m being honest, I didn’t think I’d ever write an article or an Instagram post about The Bachelor. Then again, I didn’t think neurodiversity, ableism, and self-advocacy would ever be centered on the Bachelor franchise. So here we go, let’s dive in.
In true ADHD fashion, I typically can’t just watch TV, so I usually watch The Bachelor while doing “Bucket B” work (emails, charting (probably shouldn’t confess that one), folding laundry, etc.). It takes a lot to pull my attention. But I suddenly put my laptop down and was fixated on the screen when I watched the conversation between Elizabeth and Shanae unfold. Shanae had accused Elizabeth of being “two-faced” as she was kind to her on day one and “ignored” her on another day when they were out by the pool. Elizabeth calmly and kindly explained to Shanae why she likely couldn’t hear her.
“It’s really hard for me to have multiple auditory inputs because I can’t process the information…I have ADHD. I’ve had it really bad since I was a kid. Like, I was probably just really trying to concentrate on what Ency was trying to say to me, and maybe you had said something in the middle of her saying something, and I just, I can’t, like, hear it.”
Here Elizabeth is essentially providing Shanae with education on auditory processing difficulties in the context of ADHD. Auditory difficulties and auditory processing disorder co-occurs with ADHD at high rates (Lanzetta-Valdo et al., 2017). Elizabeth even went as far as to apologize for how it made Shanae feel.
Here’s what I love about the above sentence spoken by Elizabeth (okay, two sentences); in two brief sentences, Elizabeth engages in self-disclosure, self-advocacy, and education. These things are often intertwined, which I’ll unpack. I’ve recently begun working through The Integrated Self-Advocacy Curriculum for neurodivergent people. In the first chapter, they discuss the role of self-disclosure. At first, it struck me as odd to start a book about self-advocacy with self-disclosure, but the more I learned it began to make more sense to me. Here is the thing, with an invisible disability we often have to self-disclose in order to self-advocate. No one will know that our bodies and brains process the world differently if we don’t disclose this. So to ask for what we need from the environment/others, we often have to engage in self-disclosure. And so reflecting on this week’s episode has led me to create the following equation:
Self-Disclosure + Education + Request = Self-Advocacy
Let’s break that down.
Self Disclosure
First, let’s talk about self-disclosure. Self-disclosing any part of our identity, particularly marginalized identities, is a vulnerable thing. I talk a lot about self-disclosure as a therapist. Clients figuring out when to disclose to their families they are queer, clients choosing to disclose chronic medical conditions, and yes, folks figuring out how and when to disclose their neurotype. It’s a different process when the identity we are disclosing is an invisible identity. When an identity is invisible, part of the fear of disclosing it is that it can be questioned and dismissed by others. Folks with chronic body pain often experience this. High masking neurodivergent people often experience this.
Self-disclosure of any marginalized identity is a vulnerable thing. For the person engaging in self-disclosure, this is often a source of anxiety, fear, and sometimes shame. To tell another person about our marginalized identity (or identities) is to offer something sacred to another.
Self-disclosure also happens to be the building block of self-advocacy. We don't always do this to draw closer to others; sometimes, we do it out of necessity. To receive accommodations from a neurotypical world, some form of self-disclosure is often necessary.
The Self-Disclosure Thermometer.
Self-disclosure is often necessary as part of self-advocacy. However, we also have some control over how much we choose to disclose and to whom. For example, a person may choose to simply disclose that “I have sensory issues”. Or a person may choose to disclose about executive functioning challenges. I created the neurodivergent self-disclosure thermometer to provide an example of how self-disclosure has a range, and a person can choose to disclose what amount feels tolerable. Here are a few more examples of alternative partial disclosures:
I have sensory issues
I have difficulty processing auditory information
I struggle with task switching. Can you give me a moment to switch out of this task?
My mind tends to interpret things literally; was that a joke?
My brain does best with concrete instructions. Can you break this down for me a bit?
My brain does best processing auditory information. Are any of the course books available via audible?
You can download a free fillable PDF to make your own self-disclosure hierarchy here.
Education
Education also plays a key role in self-advocacy. Self-advocacy often involves education. People outside of the ND and medical community often don't know what "auditory processing disorder" or "sensory sensitivities," or "executive functioning challenges" entail. And so we often need to provide education about these things. This often involves disclosing our vulnerabilities (see how much self-disclosure is woven into many of these things!)
In the above interaction, Elizabeth is essentially educating the other woman about auditory processing and ADHD. For many ADHDers and Autists our brains don’t filter out background noise or noise from extra stimulus in the same way as a neurotypical brain. Honestly, I have no idea how Elizabeth survived the mansion, her sensory system must have been so frazzled! Many of us adapt to this brain difference by becoming hyper-focused on the person/thing/task that is right in front of us. We override our brain’s tendency to take in everything by hyper-focusing. Also, many of us read lips in addition to listening so that we can capture the pieces of the conversations we’re missing. In a world with masks, I am frequently asking people to repeat themselves without the extra support of visible lips to read.
Our auditory differences can mean we are often aloof and can miss things. My whole life people have informed me they called my name or spoke to me and I didn’t seem to notice them. My brain was probably hyper-focusing on some other stimulus. This is not us being rude, it’s us having auditory processing issues. And let’s be honest when a woman is conventionally attractive and struggles with auditory issues, society often chooses to give them some choice words (ice queen, b*tch, stuck up, etc.).
Education Examples
Education doesn’t need to entail long lectures on auditory processing, sensory issues, or executive functioning. It can be as simple as “my brain doesn't process inputs from multiple sounds well.” Here are a few examples of ways education can be integrated into self-advocacy.
I have sensory issues, which means I develop headaches easily when around strong smells, can you please not wear perfume when you attend my classroom.
I have sensory issues which means I get headaches from bright lights, can we please move to a different table.
Making a Request
Okay, with self-disclosure and education accomplished, this is where a person ultimately engages in self-advocacy through making a request. You connect the disclosure and education to the need/request. In the case of Monday’s night’s episode Elizabeth didn’t explicitly make a request; however, the implied request was for Shanae to stop interpreting her actions through a neurotypical lens (you ignored me thus you must be a mean, red-flag person). The implicit request was for Shanae to understand a miscommunication had occurred.
Making Requests
Self-advocacy is the act of advocating for and requesting our needs be met. Requesting is thus at the heart of self-advocacy. It's difficult to advocate for what we need without explaining how our brains and bodies process things differently (self-disclosure). Our bodies and brains process information and the sensory world differently, so we often need different things from the environment than a neurotypical person. We may need:
to sit under less bright lights
be in a quiet space during an exam
people to understand and extend curiosity when we aren't following neurotypical communication patterns
Self-advocacy can be big and small. It can be the act of being an advocate in public spaces or the act of asking the person seating us at a restaurant to sit in a different location.
A Final Word on Ableism
Sadly, Elizabeth’s efforts to self-advocacy fell onto ableist ears. I could have spent the whole post on Shanae’s response and how it embodied neurotypical ableism and privilege. But I didn’t want to spend the spoons and precious attention. And I didn’t want to get my body all riled up with anger today. The response was simply terrible and embodied everything about ableist culture in a span of 90 seconds. Most damaging was how Elizabeth’s self-disclosure of a marginalized identity was used against her, disclosed to others without permission “outed”, and her identity was questioned, (“little kids are ADHD”)---which yes, speaks to the importance of having more accurate Neurodivergent representation on television and within pop culture.
And that’s the thing, we can do all the things that are within our control “right” and still have devastating, painful interactions with others. Self-disclosures will turn south, we will have our feelings hurt, and experience painful interactions. This is part of the process of being a self-advocate. We will also have beautiful, powerful, connecting moments that come from our self-disclosure. And sometimes, we will be surprised by the people who hurt us and the people who support us. This is all part of the beautiful, windy, complex journey of self-advocacy.
So while yes, I could have dedicated a whole post to decoding the harm done by Shanae, I’d rather highlight the narrative of a strong neurodivergent representation of self-advocacy. I hope this too can also be one of the narratives we take away from Monday night’s episode.
Before you go, feel free to make your own Neurodivergent Self-Disclosure Thermometer.
You can download a free fillable PDF to make your own self-disclosure hierarchy here or by clicking the the button below.
