Usually, my posts are inspired by non-fiction books. There is something about fiction, however, that often captures a deeper truth about the human condition than non-fiction can express. You might or might not like the plot of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs, but there is something undeniably (hyper)real in this story: neurodiverse children (gifted, ASD, ADHD and many others who I call “hunter-gatherer minds”) need protection, metaphorically speaking the kind of protection that Miss Peregrine provides for them.
First things first though. Neurodiverse children know they are different and love stories involving difference and parallel worlds. I have heard stories of gifted children who thought they were aliens (sci-fi) when they were kids and kept looking out into the night sky, waiting to be picked up. As strange as this might sound, it’s not uncommon. Many neurodiverse children think they have special powers (the appeal of Harry Potter) and later when they have lost a lot of their self-esteem they might believe they are some kind of freakish mutants (X-men). As adolescents, The Matrix might seem a perfect explanation to their strange lives and as grown-ups, The Truman Show might make them uneasy, as many of us have integrated into society and seemingly reached everything in life society tells us we have to strive for. And yet, we are discontent, feeling that we aren’t living our own lives and everybody else is acting according to a script. The truth is out there, yet we can only feel its presence, never see it.
There are many variations on this theme in fiction. The beauty of Miss Peregrine, however, is that like no other work of fiction it conveys the idea that the neurodiverse need protection. The peculiar children in the story are “Born to Run”, to express it with a song by Bruce Springsteen - hunted by the “Hollows”. Miss Peregrine provides a place that keeps them invisible to the outside world and safe from the Hollows. All the Peculiars really want is to connect with their own “tribe” and to live a life in peace and harmony.
Miss Peregrine is the perfect metaphor for how neurodiverse children feel in our world. Social anxiety is extremely common in ASD and gifted children. Why? The neurodiverse have egalitarian hunter-gatherer minds, that are programmed for a different world. They feel there is something off. They struggle with authority and inequality. They struggle because they often feel they are forced to do things they shouldn’t be forced to do (like boring schoolwork). Hunter-gatherers are extremely sensitive to social criticism. In our past being criticised by the group would have meant being close to ostracism - probably the worst that could have happened to a hunter-gatherer in the past.
When neurodiverse children start school they often quickly start to doubt themselves as they are aware that they are perceived as different and “not belonging”. Their self-esteem might take another big dive when teachers start to tell them that they are doing things the wrong way, they are lazy, disorderly, etc.
However, the worst may yet to come in puberty. Neurodiverse children are often the first to be bullied, for obvious reasons: they are different (“weird”) and often so socially anxious that they have no friends or “allies” and are therefore easy victims. A neurodiverse child suffers much more from bullying than a neurotypical child. For a hunter-gatherer mind, being bullied is not just being bullied by one person, but the lack of support means he or she is being ostracized by the whole group. Bullying may mean a few minutes of entertainment for a neurotypical bully (the "Hollow"), but it haunts a neurodiverse child, who is hypersensitive, for a long time. There is a well-known correlation between being bullied and suicide attempts. The same is true for (early childhood) social anxiety and suicide. The same is true for ASD and suicide. The same is true for ADHD and suicide. The same is true for ODD (oppositional defiant disorder) and suicide.
Thank you for protecting the neurodiverse, Miss Peregrine, and thank you, Ransom Riggs, for providing many hours of reading pleasure to my older neurodiverse son!
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