Diagnosed,

Interactive Documentary

Overview

Diagnosed is a collection of true stories from one family told through the moments when their neurodiversity shaped their lives. A boy who struggles with transition and grows up to study quantum physics on the other side of the world. A brother whose mania, along with his incredible kindness, generosity, creativity, intellect and many more exceptionally beautiful traits and virtue allowed him to light up every room, which was a times blurred the line by some people of faith between the Holy Spirit’s inspiration and a manic episode, not knowing he needed a hospital in that moment, not only a prayer session. A mother that built an ambitious, ecletic and eventually prestigious career with a restless that kept her working past midnight on most nights for decades until her body collapsed.

Each story will stands on its own, but will be mapped together to form a portrait of the whole family seen through its web of diagnosis such as bipolar, autism, dyslexia, dysgraphia and many other neurodivergent mental structures. It includes the diagnoses that are confirmed, ones we suspect, and ones we will never know as the members have been long dead. From this data storytelling genre of interactive documentary, the project will model the neurodiversity present in almost every, if not all, families. Neurodivergence isn't the exception in a family tree, it is the norm.

As someone with a neurodivergent mind in a family of neurodiversity, I offer this to others living with one or more diagnosises, confirmed or suspected. I offer this to families naviagting the stigmas and systems designed for attitudes and misunderstanding outdated from the learning over the past 30+ years. I offer this to society still deciding what to do with minds like ours, which holds brilliance, beauty, innovation and ingredients to the previous success and continued success of the human race; as well as the costs we need to learn to mitigate and support more effectively.

The Stories

Each node on the map will reveal real stories from the family members, diagnosed and not diagnosed. For example: A Café in Tokyo

A mom was sitting in a café in Tokyo when another American struck up a conversation, the way travelers do when they hear a familiar accent and looking for something in common. Eventually their conversation meandered to talking about their kids. She told him about her son who is on the autism spectrum. He was seven or eight then, and the diagnosis was new.

The man's daughter was already a teenager with the same diagnosis. He said the one thing he wished someone had told him when she was first diagnosed was to look at the gifts that come with this kind of neurology, not just the deficits. He had spent much of her childhood seeing her through a list of problems. It took years before he started to see and appreciate the incredible assets that came with this type of mind. She was brilliant, kind and talented in exponential ways. He regretted the years he couldn’t see it, and the anxiety and scarcity mindset that came with them.

She doesn’t remember his name, but she took what he said to heart and it deeply shaped the way she raised her son and honored his capacity. She spent a significant part of his upbringing managing his challenges, such as transition anxiety, rigid thinking and social isolation, but far more time helping to cultivate and celebrate his exceptional intelligence, creativity, curiosity, academic prowess and spiritual virtues. It paid off and continues. In high school he found his people and graduated with honors. In college he thrived socially and academically, living hours from home, on his own. Today he is pursuing his passion in quantum physics at a leading science and technology university overseas. Moving overseas on his own is a transition most “neurotypical” people would find hard to navigate.

The Map

The collection of stories and their related diagnosis are mapped to create a portrait of the family across generations of its neurodiversity. Pull back far enough and the macro view reveals the patterns of diagnoses like bipolar disorder that shows up again and again. Dyslexia that runs from grandfather, to sons, to grandson. Autism that seems to appear in some branches, and in others it's clearly present but never diagnosed.

Reading over generations the map also tells a story of progress. The older generations carry their diagnoses with almost no support. The younger ones get names, plans, accommodations and treatment their grandparents never had. The family tree shows how far we've come, and how recently. It also shows some of the positive older or culturally specific ways of including neurodiversity that have been lost in contemporary culture and wellness practices.

The map is also honest about what we know and what we don't. Some diagnoses are confirmed. Some are suspected by the people who love that person. Some belong to relatives who died before anyone had words for what they lived with, and where we can't know, we won't guess. Harm done is named as harm, not explained away by a diagnosis.

Every living person on the map decides how they appear: by name, anonymously, or not at all. Some places on the map will stay blank, and that's part of the picture too. No one can ever know every diagnosis in a family, and the silence that stigma creates is part of the story being told.