Statement on Somadivergence

We all experience our bodies and minds differently. Most people who are neurodivergent also experience, to an extent, bodied otherings. What I mean by that, is that our somatic landscapes often differ materially and conceptually from those that are put forth by the dominant paradigm of illness and pathology, in which we are embedded, as we exist in a cultural politic where the medical industrial complex reigns supreme. I, and other neurodivergent people I’ve met, express frustration in our attempts to communicate our interoceptive reality to doctors who do not recognize our physicality in these terms. Many of us neurodivergent individuals – as well as many who are neurotypical – identify with the experiences of chronic or terminal illness, physical disability, “crip” identity, fatness – and otherwise divergent and marginalized forms of embodiment and somatic realities.
That is why I felt a need to introduce this term. Up until now, most of the labels we can use to understand our bodies come from the medical industrial complex. I am by no means anti-allopathic medicine, or against healing in its multitudinous forms. Healing modalities are practical, and sometimes, transcendental. They help us to survive in a world that severely lacks in accessibility. Some modalities can even connect us with our spirituality. However, there needs to be a way to conceptualize ourselves outside of these paradigms that all assume “healing” and “cures” as the ultimate goal. It leaves those of us that have lived with chronic illness, terminal illness, undiagnosable somatic divergences, permanent physical disabilities, and fatness that we may not wish to fix, in the lurch. I want to offer us, with the term “somadivergence,” a new rhetorical space to explore our diverse bodied experiences without that need to pathologize or “fix,” but just to be with, to notice, to observe, to describe, to discuss – with neutrality, or even pride.
It is no coincidence that many neurodivergent people seek somatic education, healing, and therapy. Many of us with “mental illness,” “madness,” intellectual or developmental disability, autism, neurodivergence, and highly sensitive minds, have been dismissed by doctors when we come to them for physical concerns – the somatic distress we experience is often labeled “psychosomatic illness,” which translates to: “what you’re experiencing is made up – your mind invented it. It does not actually exist in your body.” Physiological conditions that tend to be labeled in this way include autoimmune diseases brought on by trauma – which neurodivergent people are more likely to experience, or have experienced.
There is a need for a word we can claim that can push back against that medical delegitimization and judgment. A word that is not inherently pathologizing or inextricably embedded within the medical industrial complex’s conceptions of the “abnormal body.” The term somadivergent is intended to encapsulate our other-bodied experiences, in a way that is expansive, self-directed, and empowering. We can extricate the power of illness and otherness out and away from the medical gaze – away from the individual blame and bootstraps thinking of our late-stage failing capitalist society – away from the need for a cure or “healing” – into a community-evolving identity.
I am neurodivergent, and somadivergent, and if this resonates, you may be too.

originally published 2022.