May 23, 2024
#blog
Self-help is weird. It just, never worked for me. The number of times I was told to read Atomic Habits drove me mad. I did eventually cave and read it, but only got about a third of the way in before thinking it was getting cringe and the point was already made like 50 pages ago. Needless to say, James Clear's methods did not work for me.
You can talk all you want about grifters and scams, but I do genuinely think that a lot of self-help and productivity creators have good intentions. That's not my problem with them. If they're helping a lot of people and it works, keep doing your thing. My personal problem is just... how neurotypical everything in the space is. Maybe that's why nothing works on me.
Well, there is one self-help video that has worked. Though it would not really do it justice to reduce it to just that label. I am of course referring to No Boilerplate's Elaborate Coping Mechanisms. Everything in this video was tons more relatable than any other self-help I had come across. The reason? Very simple. I would rather get advice from neurodivergent people just because we get each other a lot more.
Maybe this is just the double empathy problem surfacing on a more macro level. This is the idea that neurodivergent people will find it much easier conversing with other neurodivergent people, perhaps just as well as neurotypical people can with each other. This theory isn't accepted everywhere just yet, and imo it's not perfect, but it resonates with me a lot more than other things I've read about autism. Why is that? Fittingly, it's because the first person to propose this theory was actually autistic, unlike a lot of his predecessors!
Now it's worth addressing that maybe the reason there isn't much self-help content designed for us neurospicy folks is because we are all so different. Things like ADHD and autism do not surface the same way for everyone, especially the latter, so there isn't really a one-size-fits-all approach. And like, it's not just us - I'm sure there are neurotypical people that despise the nature of self-help content. It all centers around the magic word of "productivity," which is cool and all if you're a hypercapitalist, but I don't think everyone is seeking advice for the sole reason that they can't get work done. Productivity is not everything. It shouldn't have to be. Though if you were to browse the catalog of the only streaming site I am currently subscribed to, it may as well be.
Now I love Nebula, and I have a lot of respect for what the team have created. I even got to meet Dave, Sam, Ben, and Adam at the Jet-Lag premiere in LA last year. But if there's one thing that slightly bothers me about the platform, there is a lot of productivity content that all promotes the same junk. Again, I don't want to shame any creators in particular, but for a platform that's already done a great job highlighting creators from diverse races and gender identities, maybe more content exploring neurodivergence and even other disabilities is another avenue that should be considered. After all, we have a long way to go in terms of tackling ableism in society (and yes, I will be writing a lot about that).
I stopped bothering to consume anything at all in the self-help space, except for ironically watching the latest "here's how you can become 500% more productive and work 200 hours a week" video and poking some fun at it. Not every bit of advice is going to work, but we may as well try and - more importantly - stick with what does work. Maybe we won't get over all our issues, but as Tris said, we can address them with elaborate coping mechanisms.