Warning: Contains amateur ramblings and speculation solely based on personal experience and various anecdotes and perceptions, with a complete lack of any research or scientific basis. Also casually uses the term neurodivergence to refer mostly to autistic spectrum divergence and includes relies on the likely assumption that mental health issues such as anxiety and depression are more prevalent therein. Don't like that slapdash approach?? Go read a proper article that might make an ounce of sense!!
It shouldn't come as a surprise...
...that there is a seemingly high correlation between dedicated climbers and neurodivergent people especially on the autistic spectrum (a multifaceted spectrum of various common traits radiating out from a mythical core of "normality", with people having a different profile depending on the prominence of those facets)?? Is it a truism that it's a weird activity for weird people (often in a good way)?? After all, we're designed to swing from trees (jugs) with ease, but what sort of person is designed to sprag quarks 50' above filed down RPs behind a loose flake??
One who is potentially drawn to a relatively atypical activity that is:
- All-consuming and captivating in a wide variety of ways
- Rewards intense focus and single-mindedness
- Is individual-focused rather than a team sport, and is often social on a small, tight-knit scale
- Has a wide variety of challenges to tackle and stimulation from those
- Is very much up to the individual how they approach it
- Can be both very organic and spiritual (locations, flow, beauty of the outdoors) and/or incredibly geeky and cognitive (training, planning, progression, gear)
- Can be very distracting from the mundanities of normal existence
- In short allows the climber to be completely obsessive, oblivious to normality, anti-social to the point of sullenness, devoid of conventional emotion, driven by numbers and tactics and other minutiae, etc etc. Or indeed rewards them for being so... What's not to like?!
Climbing is just a sport. Or just a lifestyle. Like many others. But I genuinely believe that those factors above are more prominent than in most activities, and also that climbing just has so much going on it, so many ways to engage and enjoy it, that make it a truly captivating activity. Spending day after day in the bitter cold trying to do two moves on micro-edges is climbing. Watching the sun set over the sea at the top of a new route of unknown rock with the smell of sea-gull shit being the only reference point is climbing. An-pow-cap wanking over Lattice clickbait is climbing (ish). Chatting to your mate and sharing a snack bar on a half-way ledge on a big multi-pitch is climbing. Jumping between resin blobs is climbing and trudging through the snow to stick to vertical slopers is climbing.
So it's captivating. It just needs a target to capture, a willing victim or unwitting prey... And with so many factors that are seemingly suitable for some form of neurodivergence, that's the best hunting grounds. Sometimes you get juicier, more prestigious prey. Maybe people like JD, JMcC, ET, DMcC etc seem to be the finer trophies on climbing's wall.
(At least, historically so. With the increase in comfortable consumerist climbing as the gym-style gateway into the sport (and the relatively simplicity of that), maybe the mainstream is taking over, with an increase in neurotypical participants. Ugh)
Completely normal activity. Nothing to see here.
It shouldn't come as a surprise...
...that I am one of those people.
People sometimes ask why did I choose climbing.
The answer is: I didn't, IT chose ME.
(Stupid fucking activity.)
I've been dedicated to climbing for over 20 years, and from the start, after having sampled and spurned many sports and activities, it just seemed right to me (somewhat incongruously with my athletic background of, errr, painting toy soldiers). I've seen it through thick and thin, highs and lows, illness and injury and injury and injury, I've battled a fair amount of feeling physical and mental unsuitable for it because it's still just seemed right. And I've always been inspired, always been determined, almost always loved it (and when I haven't it's due to inhibitions getting in the way).
I've also had my own tastes and my own drives which are often an incongruous melting pot by climbing's already oddball standards. Most of those examples above and more (well apart from the Latticewanking, fuck that) have drawn me in, with a pretty personal and sometimes peculiar focus.
So no surprises. I am neurodivergent, and that is intrinsically linked to climbing choosing me, me being swallowed alive by it, and being digested to be at one with that activity. "High-functioning (-ish!!) aspergyers" (as it was described back then) personality with a tendency to depression and anxiety (I've done a lot of work in the past on the social/emotional/relational issues that are common and were very prevalent in my youth - I know, imagine what a knobhead I was back then. Still a work in progress of course).
That's me. It's not something I want to write about, nor broadcast publicly. With a bit of a, ummm, particular personality already, I can already be a bit of a target, and I don't want to me more of one. But equally I don't want to be hidden away when being open about these things could be beneficial to me, and even to people around me. In recent years - more specifically this year - the depression and anxiety and other old issues that have been snapping at my heels have caught me up as injury and age and personal issues have slowed me down, and.....they kinda nip hard. And whilst I'm tackling that myself, I'm also needing help and support, so I've had to take the risk, make myself vulnerable and open up.
I'm writing this because I want to clear it up. And for any people who are wondering "Yeah right why is that belligerent sod Chief Inspector Twat Of The Ethics Police, amateur chossaneer and relentless contrarian coming across as such a needy, fragile fanny these days??" - now you know. Because it's all part of that same personality, all sides of the same coin (and indeed the Chief Twat is all part of the coin of being passionate about climbing). Loving grovelling up silty chimneys on Red Wall // being out looking at the most beautiful scenery with an empty heart because I don't understand what it all means - it's all part of it; Walking 2 hours with 2 pads and 2 gammy legs to do the best hand crack boulder problem in the UK // pacing around my living room at 8am in the morning because I'm frantic about indecision on going to Ratho in a team of 3 - it's all part of it. And this bewildering and challenging melting pot of personality traits is something I perceive as fairly common, whether people need to admit it or not. I've had to...and hope it works out.
