Russell Barkely describes ADHD as a disorder of one’s ability to self-regulate, i.e., to
engage in internal self-directed actions. This raises a problem when considering the phenomenon
of masking, in which a neurodivergent individual puts up a front to fit in situations with
neurotypical norms. If masking is a form of self-regulation, and if ADHD is a disorder of
self-regulation, then how can people with ADHD mask at all? I will argue that this problem
prompts us to understand ADHD as a disorder…
Read moreRussell Barkely describes ADHD as a disorder of one’s ability to self-regulate, i.e., to
engage in internal self-directed actions. This raises a problem when considering the phenomenon
of masking, in which a neurodivergent individual puts up a front to fit in situations with
neurotypical norms. If masking is a form of self-regulation, and if ADHD is a disorder of
self-regulation, then how can people with ADHD mask at all? I will argue that this problem
prompts us to understand ADHD as a disorder of a specific type of self-regulation,
quasi-transcendent self-regulation, and that the German anarchist Max Stirner provides us with a
new concept of immanent self-regulation that can account for ADHD masking.
First, I perform a phenomenological analysis of my own experiences masking my
ADHD in order to uncover the internal logic of immanent masking. I identify that this logic
originates from an internalization of consistent social exclusion due to the social disruptiveness
of one’s ADHD symptoms. Such an internalization constitutes one’s self as devalued in relation
to the other, which allows this other to transcend them. Then, I argue that the progression of
a logic of domination in Stirner’s psychological and historical accounts of two major ideological
shifts—first, from Catholicism to Protestantism, and, second, from Socialism to
Humanism—provides us with theoretical accounts of quasi-transcendent and immanent masking
respectively.
I conclude by proposing a possible solution to immanent masking. Using Stirner’s
ethical notion of the insurrection, I propose my own notion of the micro-insurrection, and discuss
the implementation of it in my life through the employment of subversive humor. I describe how
this humor can destabilize the social expectations of a given context by strategically adopting the
positions rendered absurd and impossible by the dominant ideology in order to locally undermine
it. Micro-insurrections thus render the power relations of a space ambiguous so as to allow for
free movement and free expression.
