“…if you are not like everybody else, then you are abnormal, if you are abnormal , then you are sick. These three categories, not being like everybody else, not being normal and being sick are in fact very different but have been reduced to the same thing

― Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish

The  essays presented in this section investigate the complexities of the mind–and how unconventional modes of coping, expressing and creating are harnessed to create meaningful existences for individuals labeled as abnormal due to their neurodiversity. Each population explored has a shared method of navigating social exile. By utilizing creative and unconventional methods, these outcasts strive to reinvent their identities and social roles.

Venita Andrews‘s “A Brain by Any Other Name Is Not the Same” is a literature review focusing on the phenomenological lens of the memoir to ask : How does the scarlet letter of mental illness define a person, and what steps are necessary for them to shed the chains of social stigmatization? How does the label of acute mental illness transform a person’s understanding of self?  In “You Are Not Alone: Stigmatized Identity and Confessions of Dyslexia on YouTube,” Melissa Boronkas examines how three young adults, who disclose their dyslexia via YouTube, are able to create a supportive peer community for others with hidden disabilities. In “Synesthesia: Color Hearing,” Dagmara Lach surveys personal memoirs by painters and musicians who describe their experience with synesthesia–cross-sensory perceptions, whereby they hear color or see sound–in relation to their creative process.